


Suggestive

by spacepottato



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 00:19:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 61,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8181478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacepottato/pseuds/spacepottato
Summary: Izutaka college au. Chapters based on a list of sentence prompts that I liked too much to choose only one. Prompt might be changed slightly sometimes.





	1. “Apart from being sexy, what do you do for a living?”

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts at alannasroleplaymemes.tumblr.com/post/147166483546 titled "suggestive sentence starters" though if the rating goes up it won't be until later 
> 
> All chapters set in the same universe and posted in linear order. Probably.

Shun wasn’t really sure what to expect from his first college party, but it wasn’t this. Technically the first term hadn’t started yet, so he supposed this was their way of celebrating their last weekend before the workload took over all their spare time, but he felt very out of place.

He’d arrived at his dorm room only that afternoon, unpacked his small case, and been left alone with nothing to do after ten minutes. Lying on his bed fully dressed, bored, lonely, and a little creeped out by the silence, he’d only managed another few minutes before he had to get up and leave to find something to pass the hours until he could sleep.

Moving from a loud and busy house back home where his sisters would make sure it was never too quiet to this was… weird. He knew he had a roommate, but whoever it was wasn’t there. Shun thought he should be glad for a little time to adjust before meeting them, but the strange empty silence of the room only made him more nervous.

Barely seconds after opening the door he was faced with a group of rather loud girls, chatting at high speed all at once. It was sort of bizarre how well the noise managed to settle the uneasy anxiety wriggling in him, but that didn’t last long. They’d greeted him animatedly, though he’d never so much as seen any one of them in his life, and then, totally against his will, he’d found his arms linked tightly and his stepped being directed to… wherever here was.

Here was loud, and it was crowded – full of drunk students and loud music and a total lack of supervision – and it was all jarring enough that he almost missed the oppressive silence back at the dorm room.

Wherever that was from here.

It wasn’t bad once he got used to it. He even accepted a drink from a guy who looked like he could bench press a small truck without too much bother, though he kept an eye on the girls who’d brought him to the party so they couldn’t disappear before showing him the way back to the dorms again. He was glad at least he wouldn’t look like a creep for watching them so closely thanks to his ‘eagle eye’; an ability that let him see what was happening around the whole room that he was in without looking, which was fortunately just within his range.

He used it every now and then to scan the room, wishing he had someone to talk to since he felt kind of stupid standing alone in the middle of all the partying, looking quite obviously like someone without any friends. At least the music was okay.

Scanning the room again, he saw that at least he wasn’t the only person there who was making it visibly obvious that they were feeling out of place – a tall boy in glasses stood holding a plastic cup and glaring ahead at nothing, looking even less comfortable than Shun was.

Shun didn’t even complete the thought of whether he should go over there or not before disregarding it completely. The moment he laid eyes on the guy he could see he didn’t want to talk to anyone. He didn’t even want to be there at all.

His attention was drawn away almost immediately as someone else entered the room, beaming like a lantern of pure cocky cheer as he stepped on chairs and tables and leapt over furniture to avoid having to take the time to weave through the crowd so that he could bolt right on over to the tall boy holding the drink, all the way clearly enjoying being the centre of attention. The attention was brief though before they all turned away again. He leapt from the back of a wooden chair and landed right in front of the other boy, taking the drink from him the second his feet touched the floor. The chair wobbled for a second and then fell to the floor with a loud clatter, making almost everyone in the room turn to the noise for a moment, a few of them letting out a yelp of alarm.

Looking pleased with himself, he raised the cup to his lips, but paused before taking a drink and turned his head, dropping the grin and looking curiously past everyone else to where Shun stood at the other end of the room. His eyes narrowed.

Embarrassed to be caught staring, Shun panicked and looked away quickly, but a hurried scan of the room told him that the pair were already making their way over to him. At the last possible moment he turned to face what he was certain was going to be a telling off about his manners.

“Lovely shade of pink you’re wearing there.”

He’d already opened his mouth to apologise, not wanting to make any enemies before he’d even been there a whole day, but the comment had caught him so off guard that he simply stood there for several long seconds with his mouth still hanging open, the words lost.

He forced his jaws shut and glanced down at his clothes before looking back up and saying, “But I’m wearing black.”

The other boy only stared at him. And Shun could do nothing but blink stupidly back at him.

The other boy stood behind him, closing his eyes in what looked like a heroic effort not to roll them, until his friend burst into laughter, spilling cheap beer onto the floor from his cup.

“Takao,” the taller one sighed, “You’re drunk and we need to –”

“Yeah, yeah, we will,” Takao waved a hand as though to dismiss whatever complaint his friend was about to make, though his eyes stayed fixed on Shun the whole time. “Apart from being sexy, what do you do for a living?”

His friend put a hand over his face. Shun’s eyes widened but there was nothing but static happening behind them.

“You come here often?” Takao went on, yelling a little too loud to just be trying to be heard over the noise.

“What?” Shun asked, still staring dumbly, his eyes growing wider.

Takao laughed at him again, and Shun looked around quickly to see if anyone else was witnessing this, too distracted to use his eagle eye vision. No one was paying the slightest bit of attention. Shun wondered if his drink had been spiked.

“I’m not a photographer, but I can picture me and you together.”

Maybe it was Takao’s drink that had been spiked.

“Hey, can I ask a favour?” Takao asked him, suddenly serious. Shun nodded his head slowly, not sure what else he could do. “I seem to have lost my phone number. Can I have yours?”

The boy behind him reached over Takao’s shoulder quickly and swiped the drink from his hand and simply said, “Stop.”

“Oh come on,” Takao laughed, trying to get the drink back. He couldn’t reach, his friend had the advantage of height and held the cup up out of his reach. “That was one of the best ones.”

“How come you can memorise a book of terrible pickup lines but can’t study a single sheet of notes?” His friend didn’t seem to really be looking for an answer, but Takao looked ready to give one anyway.

“Are you flirting with me?” Shun blurted out. Both Takao and his friend stopped what they were doing and turned to look at him again. The taller boy was unreadable, but still somehow gave the impression, without the slightest shift in expression, that he thought Shun was an idiot. Although he didn’t seem to have a higher opinion of Takao, who held in his laughter for almost a whole second before it burst out in a loud raspberry before he doubled over clutching his stomach and let it all out, guffawing obnoxiously enough that everyone close enough to hear him over the music turned to stare at them.

Shun flushed, waiting for it to be over, but when Takao calmed down and managed to stand himself upright again he darted off without another word, still laughing, to grab a beer from a girl handing a large tray of them out to her group of friends, his friend following behind, also without a word or a backwards glance. Shun watched them for a few minutes. Frowning at the familiar way he spoke with the girls, swaying from the drink and giggling even as they light heartedly told him off for stealing the drink. He wondered how long Takao had been here that he was so comfortable and friendly with so many people. The only people Shun had really spoken to since arriving were him and…

He scanned the room again with his eagle eye vision, and then again properly with his eyes. The girls who’d dragged him to the party were gone from sight and he had no idea where he was or how to get back to the dorms in the dark by himself. He put down his half full cup and set to searching the house for someone he recognised.


	2. "You can stay but your clothes must go."

Shun spent another hour at the party searching for anyone he recognised at all, asking around for directions, but after one threat from a guy who thought Shun was hitting on his girlfriend, another threat from a girl who thought he was hitting on her girlfriend, narrowly avoiding getting thrown up on by one person before he could even finish his question, and then actually getting thrown up on by their friend, he decided that the mission was a failure and he’d be better off going out and searching for it himself. It couldn’t be far, he was sure it hadn’t taken long to get here, but it was daylight when he’d arrived and everything looked very different in the dark.

Another two hours he spent wandering the streets – where he was splashed with wet mud by a passing van, stepped in something one of the local dog owners had so kindly left out on the street, and got yelled at by some kid half his height for 'lurking' when he'd stopped to try to figure out which direction he was supposed to go in – until he’d managed to find his way back to the party and promptly decided to give up for now.

There were plenty of people crashing where they seemed to have landed strewn around the house, so Shun figured no one would mind if he found somewhere to spend the rest of the night too. In another few hours the sun would come up again and he could go back out there and try again. Or at least find someone sober to ask for directions.

He spared a moment to be thankful that classes didn’t start that day.

The couches were taken, even the one that had spilt beer and a small spatter of what looked like it could possibly be blood on it. Upstairs he found two locked doors, one bedroom that was occupied, another bedroom that was very occupied, and a strange girl half asleep in an airing closet. After he politely declined a slurred invitation to join her in there, he found the bathroom to be blessedly empty of drunk students and lay himself in the bathtub since it appeared to be the only place on the property not already claimed as a bed.

After a moment of uncomfortable wriggling he grabbed a clean looking towel from the rail and pulled the curtain across the bath. It would have to do.

He slept, but not soundly, and several times he was woken by the sound of the bathroom door opening and had to lie there still and silent listening to drunk strangers using the toilet. Luckily, no one pulled back the curtain to find him there and nothing too eventful happened.

Until some time after the sun had risen and Shun was woken sharply by a cold wave of water that splashed in his face, making him splutter and shiver with shock.

“Oh hey, sorry 'bout that, didn’t see you there,” Shun looked up to see an amused grin. He held a bucket loosely at his side, his other arm leaning on a mop, and Shun guessed it wasn’t clean water he’d been hit with. “Come on. Sun’s up, fun’s up. Get out.”

He did as he was told without any argument, though when he tried to take the towel with him to dry off it was snatched from his hands.

It was as frustrating as it was relieving when he found the way back was much shorter and easier to recognise in the daylight, and he made it back to the dorm quickly enough that he hadn’t even hardly dried off at all during the walk there.

When he opened the door he saw that his roommate was home and was sleeping with a pillow over his face.

Shun shut the door as quietly as he could, but after the hushed click there was a muffled, “Get. Out.”

Not asleep then, he guessed, realising that now he’d have to introduce himself.

“My name is Izuki Shun, I’m–”

Shun fell silent as his roommate ripped away the pillow from his own face in irritation to shoot a glare at him with tired red eyes, but then did a double take and raised his eyebrows, somewhat surprised.

“Well,” he said, his tone a lot less hostile already. “You can stay,” he wrinkled his nose, eyes flicking down, “but your clothes must go.”

A silence stretched out.

“Really,” he went on insistently, “you fall down a well or something?”

He supposed he would look an awful mess right now, but that wasn’t his most pressing a concern.

“Takao?” Shun remembered him from the party. Vividly. But what were the odds of this?

Takao frowned. “Do I know you?”

“The party last night,” Shun said, but all he got was a blank stare. He could only stare back, not debating whether it was worth retelling the incident to jog Takao’s memory. In the end he decided that no, it was not. “I’ll get changed.”

Confused, Takao sat himself up a little, propped on his elbows and frown deepening as he watched Shun cross the room to where his clothes were folded into the small drawers. Without looking, Shun saw Takao watching him, his eyes darting between Shun and the drawers while his hungover brain put two and two together. And he just kept on staring.

“I’m getting changed now,” Shun said pointedly. He was used to getting changed with a whole basketball team of guys, but the unwritten locker room rules said that you mind your manners and not ogle while people change. Takao didn’t seem to notice that he’d spoken.

“You’re my roommate?” He asked, voice thick with disbelief. Shun nodded. “You live here?” He actually waited for a reply, so Shun nodded again. Takao’s eyes narrowed, and his voice dropped to an almost whisper. “I live with you?”

Shun wasn’t sure whether he was being insulted or not – no, on second thought, he was almost certain that that was an insult – but he didn’t want it to turn into a fight, so he just picked up his clean clothes and towel and told Takao, “I’m going to shower.”

He got no reply, but as he left the room he heard a faint, “Damn…” as the door slowly shut behind him, and he groaned inwardly. He really didn’t want to have to spend the rest of the year living with someone who was vocally displeased with the fact, but they had been randomly assigned and Shun knew no one here yet, so if Takao was that disappointed about the arrangement he could request a switch himself. He seemed to have plenty of friends here anyway.


	3. "My sexual preference is often."

Takao Kazunari was a menace to share a room with. He went out with friends and came back late – almost guaranteed to wake Shun whenever he had an early class the next day – but when he slept, he slept like the dead. When he was there he was either complaining loudly about having so much hard work to do, or he was bored and pestered Shun so that he couldn’t do his work. He was messy and left things strewn across the room, including on Shun’s bed, but then if Shun tried to clean up for him he’d complain he knew where everything was before and now couldn’t find them. Occasionally he would borrow things without asking, and when Shun needed it back Takao would be nowhere to be found for him to ask.

Twice Shun had come back to their room to find Takao wearing something of his. The first time, he’d left early from a cancelled lesson and come back to find him sat on the floor laughing at YouTube videos on his phone, dressed in one of his t-shirts and nothing else but a towel around his waist.

“Is that mine?” Shun had asked, pointing at the shirt that they both clearly knew was his.

“No,” Takao said flatly. Wide-eyed and silent while his blatant lie hung in the air between them.

Not sure what else to say, Shun had decided to pretend it didn’t happen and get on with his already overwhelming mountain of assignments.

The second time, he’d come back from practicing his basketball shooting technique alone in the tiny outdoor court at a nearby park, and he’d found Takao on his bed, sleeping in Shun’s favourite hoodie. After making enough noise to make their neighbours worry if they had neighbours that cared, and several attempts to physically shake Takao awake, Shun had snapped in frustration and tried to forcefully take the hoodie from him until, with the hoodie pulled up to Takao’s armpits and no way to get it any further, Shun had to take a look at himself almost sat on top of the other boy attempting to undress him and very firmly decided to forget about the hoodie and pretend the whole thing hadn’t happened at all.

The worst part was that he wasn’t even sure if Takao was being difficult to live with, or if he was just exaggerating it all to be that bad because he’d hoped it would be different. He still knew hardly anyone in his own classes, he still had no friends, the people he’d known in high school had all gone other ways and had forgotten about him, having already been gone to college or wherever else a year before he’d left home. Meanwhile, here was Takao – who he’d quickly discovered was also starting his first year, fresh out of high school, and who seemed to have already had plenty of friends there when he’d started – easily making friends with every new person he met.

No, the worst part really was that he didn’t even know why it bothered him so much. He shouldn’t be jealous. This wasn’t high school anymore, and having friends wasn’t the priority. He’d probably even be better off not having a social life if he wanted a hope of getting through half the work he’d have to do if the first week was anything to go by. 

That didn’t really make it feel any less lonely though.

Takao was out right now, off somewhere with his friends doing whatever it was they did while Shun wandered around their room trying to untangle the mess so that he could at least organise his own things.

When Takao had finally come round from his hangover – which Shun figured could have been anytime between him leaving to take a shower that first morning they’d met in the room and him returning from his first day of classes since he hadn’t actually seen Takao awake much at all that whole weekend, and he was almost certain that the Saturday and Sunday night when Takao had gone out it had been to attend more parties – he’d taken a moment to reintroduce himself with a little speech that sounded more practiced than any of the half written essays Shun was having to pile up for him in one corner so that they wouldn’t get thrown out with the trash.

“I need quiet to focus on things and I can’t do that if you’re distracting me–”

Lies. Hilarious, especially when it turned out that Takao’s idea of ‘can’t focus’ is attempting to do homework for ten minutes and then complaining that he was tired or bored and then trying his best to keep Shun from getting any of his own done. He didn’t seem able to keep quiet even when he had nothing to talk about and would start singing instead.

“We should arrange with each other when it’s okay if we want to have people over–”

Lies, he sighed to himself, scanning the room again for spare bits of paper that might be important before he could clear out the junk.

Shun had already begun to wonder how Takao’s friends seemed to be in their room more often than he was himself and not once had Takao even bothered to mention it in advance.

“Don’t touch my stuff and I won’t touch yours,”

More lies, he thought, finding his best hoodie – that he had already managed to steal back once now already – stuffed half under Takao’s pillow like he couldn’t have at least used the wardrobe that he’d claimed as entirely his own. 

“Keep to yourself on your side of the room and I’ll do the same,” 

Lies again!

When he wasn’t out partying and didn’t have friends over, Takao spent most of his time sitting on Shun’s bed chatting away nonstop, poking at his things and asking random irrelevant questions, and just generally not doing what he knew he should be doing.

He strongly suspected that Takao was just repeating a speech that someone else had given to him at some point. He also suspected that Takao was either messing with him, or that maybe he was just drunk again.

Checking the pockets of his hoodie before he stuffed it into a bag to be washed, Shun found a single piece of crumpled paper – one of the flyers people from the clubs had been handing out all week by the look of it – and flicked it into the basket he’d been collecting trash from around the room in.

“So anyway, my name is Takao Kazunari, my major is in my pants, my sexual preference is often, and my secret superhero identity is Supervision… Actually, that’s a work in progress. You can be my sidekick if you can pull off a backflip in a spandex costume.” He paused for a brief moment to snort at his own joke. “Also I’m allergic to early mornings so don’t bother waking me up unless you absolutely have to.”

That last part seemed to be true at least. Shun left for class most mornings before Takao had even woke up. At first he’d thought maybe it was just the hangover, but then it carried on happening every morning. He thought that maybe Takao woke but just refused to get out of bed or open his eyes or move at all, but no matter what he said or did, he still didn’t so much as twitch. He set off the loudest alarm his phone could manage as close to Takao as he dared, but even that shrill sound didn’t seem to reach Takao at all.

More disconcerting than the supersonic speed of his sentences was the moment where he finally paused for breath and said, “Okay. Your turn. Go.” Shun had been caught so off guard that he could only manage to blurt out his name again before panic had him turning around and walking away red-faced. 

Shun hadn’t really had a chance to talk to him much since then, and Takao hadn’t tried. He wasn’t sure which of them was avoiding the other right now. 

Satisfied that the room was habitable and no longer a trap waiting to trip him, he picked up the basket to take it out and empty it, but the paper on the top caught his eye. It must have opened slightly as he’d thrown it in, and now he saw the image of the basketball showing just slightly in one of the corners.

He stopped and stood there with the flyer in his hands, staring down at it. He hadn’t even thought about checking if the college had a decent basketball team when he’d chosen to go here. Where he went to college had been decided on by which one of them was closest to home and offered the courses he wanted to take. He hadn’t even considered that he might play basketball again for a long time now.

Even though he’d been in his high school team, one of the founding members even, he was always a skill step behind. Always had to work harder and longer to get half as good as the others, and by his third year he had more memories from the bench than the court. And after that, he’d spent a year with no one to play, no team to join, and no reason to hope he might go to college, never mind join a team and play again. Practice in the street around home was about as good as it had gotten, and everyone else trying out would be in much better shape for it than him.

He folded the paper and slipped it into his pocket.


	4. "I'm always looking for meaningful one night stands."

Shun felt the pressure already. Homework assignments piled up faster than he could get through them and the work in classes was no picnic either. More irritating was how Takao could easily keep up with his late night partying as well as his own classes even though he never seemed to do more than glance over his homework when the mood struck him.

Maybe Takao was just naturally gifted. Shun huffed with impatience, rereading the same paragraph of text for the third time because he wasn’t concentrating.

Trying to make friends was exhausting and inconvenient no matter how much he wanted it, but he couldn’t seem to be able to get past the ‘polite introduction followed by awkward small talk’ stage with anyone in his classes.

Takao was definitely naturally gifted in that area. He was too friendly, he got along with too many people too easily. It irritated Shun, even though he knew that it was really only jealousy. Everyone just liked Takao. He was like a magnet. Which would explain why, if he wasn’t careful and very firm with himself, Shun would often realise that his eyes had strayed over there while he was meant to be doing something else.

 _It must be the smile,_ he figured. It was at the same time both magnetic and hard to look directly at

Takao must have felt Shun looking, because he looked up at him, quickly like he was trying to catch him staring. He did that often too. Shun hated himself for automatically looking away too quickly, like he did every single time. It only made him look even more guilty of staring.

“Hah? Oh, no, yeah, I’m listening,” Takao said to the phone held at his ear. He was always talking to someone. Even if he wasn’t bugging Shun, if he was in the room he was talking. It’s like he couldn’t stop. He didn’t even seem like he really _wanted_ to talk to him, just like he couldn’t help himself.

That probably shouldn’t have been as irritating as Shun found it, considering how used to chatter and noise he was from home, but Takao was getting to be like an itch under his skin that he couldn’t quite reach. If he looked at that smile for too long it made him want to throw things. Not even necessarily _at Takao._ Just. Ugh.

He huffed again, shifting in his seat.

“Then bring more girls this time,” Takao laughed down the phone. It sounded like Takao was planning another party. Shun thought that maybe he should be glad when Takao went out all night – less time spent in the room pestering Shun meant more time for Shun to do hi work in peace, right? But somehow Shun still spent the whole time thinking about Takao and how irritating it was that he wasn’t there _where he should be_ , instead of off doing who knows what with god knows who. “I don’t know, can’t you just find some? Yeah exactly, round them up from class.”

Not to mention he found it harder to sleep not knowing when Takao might come back and wake him.

Maybe he was just blaming Takao right now. He had an interview later – his first proper job interview – and he was trying not to think too much about it, except that it was the only thing on his mind, besides the irritating way Takao’s lips curved when he smirked like that.

Takao looked over at Shun again, and Shun’s eyes snapped back down to the textbook that he wasn’t reading. He glared at it in frustration.

And then there was basketball. He’d decided to try out for the team, but try outs were going to be held after the weekend and Shun was out of practice. He was annoyed with himself that he’d let himself slack so much during the last year when basketball had always been so important to him before. Sometimes you’re just forced to change your priorities…

He flipped the page irritably without finishing the paragraph. He’d have to go back to that later when he wasn’t so distracted.

Another thing to worry about. His mom and little sister back home. Having to take care of themselves without him or Aya to help. Well, his mom had promised she’d be okay now – not that he was convinced she had total control over the fact, but she had insisted he take her word for it – and Mai wasn’t such a child anymore, she would be able to help sometimes, but she still had school and a life outside of that.

“I don’t know, just tell them all to line them up and I’ll pick a few out.”

_What the fuck?_

Shun lowered the book a little, using his eagle eye vision to watch Takao more carefully. He didn’t look like he was joking.

“Yeah, well, just make sure to make them all drink plenty first so we don’t have any more episodes like last time. Honestly, don’t you even know how to take care of your girls?”

 _What the_ fuck?

Shun abandoned being subtle and turned his head to stare at Takao, who was laughing and holding the phone away from his ear while whoever was on the other end of the call yelled at him.

“I know, I know,” he said after he stopped laughing, trying to calm his friend. “But she was fine, wasn’t she? She was just being melodramatic. Exactly, so we can play a few games and you’ll still be able to toss her around a bit afterwards.”

Shun didn’t even turn away when Takao looked this time. He just continued staring open mouthed until the conversation was over and he remembered to pretend he was minding his own business. Whatever it was, surely there’s no way it was as bad as it sounded, but if he was getting the wrong idea he knew that it only served him right for listening to one half of someone else’s conversation anyway.

Shun exhaled loudly and closed him textbook. He should take a break; he definitely wasn’t going to able to study anything right now.

He looked at his watch, chewing on his lip. Time seemed to be hopping ahead an extra hour or so every time he looked at it today and it was making him feel a little sick. It was just nerves because of the interview, but he still had time to prepare.

The clothes he planned to wear were already out on his bed, neat and ready. He tapped his nails in a quick rhythm on the desk, staring at them until he noticed Takao watching him from the other side of the room where he leaned against the closet with his arms folded over his chest and his head cocked curiously to one side.

Shun couldn’t stop himself from turning his gaze away again the moment they made eye contact.

“You should come,” Takao said. He waited until Shun looked back at him before he went on, grinning. “I’m going out with some friends. You should come.”

“Why?” Shun asked dumbly. It probably came out a little abrupt, but Takao had never invited him along before, or given the impression that he wanted to be friends. Even his high school friend had never really invited him out much unless it was a team thing.

Takao shrugged. His shirt sleeves were folded right up to his elbows, showing off arms that didn’t look like they belonged to someone who spent the majority of their time partying and the rest of it sleeping. Shun’s eyes narrowed when he realised why his eyes must have been drawn to that; it was his best shirt, the one he’d spent all of the previous afternoon searching for after he’d been offered the interview. “Cause it’s a Saturday and you never go anywhere and it’s kinda sad and weird to spend all your spare time stuck in this box?”

“No,” Shun turned away, flipping his textbook open to a random page so he could pretend to read. “Thanks.”

The being called weird part was upsetting, but not an uncommon thing for him, but being invited somewhere only out of pity was a new hit.

Takao just stayed there watching him for a little while longer before he gave up and left the room, but Shun felt no more relieved when he was gone. He probably should have said yes. He might have considered it if he didn’t already have plans.

He looked at the clothes set out on his bed. There was still a lot of time before he needed to get ready, but he’d rather be early than late.

He showered first, torn between taking his time so there’d be less time for standing around worrying about it and rushing himself because what if time did that weird skipping ahead thing it likes to do when you’re nervous for something and he somehow missed it while he was just standing around in the shower?

He didn’t miss it. He was fine. He had plenty of time.

He just had to find his shoes.

“Hey,” Takao said, coming into the room with a pot of instant noodles in one hand, which was about as far as Shun was aware his cooking skills stretched. He’d never seen him eat anything else. “You change your mind yet? We need an extra guy anyway so…”

“Sorry, I can’t,” Shun sighed, yanking things up from the floor in his search. “I’m busy.”

“Doing what?”

He pulled his bed apart in case somehow he’d slept with them in there. “I have plans.”

“Cancel them.”

“I can’t,” he said, pausing only for a second to look at Takao, making sure he was serious. He looked serious. It was hard to tell, because Takao didn’t seem to look serious even when he was serious. It was hard for anyone to look serious slurping noodles.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s important.”

“Why?”

“Because it is.”

“How important?”

“Very.”

“What are you doing?”

“I told you,” he started pulling Takao’s bed apart. Takao just stepped out of the way to let him. “I have plans and they’re important and I can’t… I can’t find my shoes!”

“Plans for what?”

“An interview.”

“An interview for what?”

“A job.”

“What kind of job?”

“For a – I don’t know,” Shun sighed, sitting back on his heels to survey the room for somewhere new to look. “Some café.”

“What café?”

“I don’t remember what it–”

“Where is it?”

“Near campus.”

“How near?”

“Did you take them?”

Takao froze for a moment, noodles still hanging out of his mouth and dripping down his chin while he processed the change of subject. When he snapped out of it he took his time finishing them off while Shun waited, watching like there was something fascinating about it. He finally swallowed his last bite and put down the pot, licking his lips. “Take what?”

Shun blinked, mentally blanking for second before he remembered what he was searching for. “My shoes. Did you take my shoes?”

“I haven’t… Why would I take your shoes? I have my own shoes.”

“You have your own shirts too!”

Takao laughed guiltily. “I definitely didn’t take your shoes though.”

Shun sighed heavily and continued his search. He started raking through his things in his drawers, dropping things on the floor as he worked his way down from the top drawer to the bottom.

“You could just reschedule it,” Takao suggested, sounding a little concerned as he watched Shun frantically tear through his own things.

“I don’t – aagh!” Shun lifted his head too quickly, crashing it into the still open top drawer. He took a breath, one hand clasped to the top of his head, and slammed the open drawer closed a little too hard. The not-quite-empty pot left on top wobbled and fell, leftovers spilling over the side and trickling down Shun’s shoulder. He resisted the urge to just let himself fall forward to slam face first into the cheap wooden drawers – he’d probably break them if he did – while Takao managed to hold back a loud giggle for all of around three seconds. Shun kept his head down not sure for a moment that he wasn’t going to laugh too even though his eyes watered and his head hurt.

When he was able to, and Takao had calmed down, Shun stood and turned to him. “Okay, take off my shirt.”

Takao’s eyes widened almost comically in surprise, though his smirk stayed in place. “You don’t think you can undress yourself? Or… are you hoping for me to strip you?”

“I didn’t mean that,” Shun felt his face flame. “I meant take off your shirt.”

“So you want _me_ to strip?” He asked, smirk growing wider.

“I don’t want anyone to strip! I need the shirt that you’re wearing. It's the only other decent one that I have right now.”

Takao put a hand to the highest fastened button, shit eating grin at max. “Hey, just admit you want me to strip and you can have it.”

Shun’s tried to say something but his thoughts were white noise. How was he supposed to respond to that?

Takao popped open the first button.

“Keep it!” Shun yelled, moving away and opening the closet doors so quickly that Takao had to stumble out of the way, cracking up as he did. “Just keep it, I don’t want it!”

“I’m just kidding,” he said, clutching his sides. “You can have it.”

“I don’t want it,” Shun repeated, shaking his head at the mess in the closet. Everything was just dumped on the bottom. “I’ll borrow one of… Wait, I found one of my shoes.”

He dug the other out of the pile of clothes and held them out in front of Takao, whose laughter turned into a guilty chuckle.

“Oh, those shoes,” he rubbed the back of his neck, smiling apologetically. “Whoops. I didn’t wear them, I just threw them in there when I was cleaning.”

 _Cleaning._ Shun almost smiled at him.

The door swung open and five foot nothing of blonde hair and preppy cheer burst in, and Shun’s urge to smile faded. He didn’t bother excusing himself from the conversation or trying to act like anything other than an invisible background character. Takao was friends with everyone, and he was especially irritatingly friendly with the cheerleaders.

He let himself be ignored and tried to block them out, feeling that unfamiliar rise of annoyance that only really seemed to happen around Takao’s friends. Jealousy wasn’t something he’d often felt with his friends in high school, he’d accepted that they were best friend’s with each other and that he’d have to be fine with being more like the spare friend.

Maybe that wasn’t fair. They’d probably never thought of him as ‘the spare friend’ at all, but third wheeling wasn’t fun, and Takao just seemed to have _too many_ friends. There was always someone hanging on him. He didn’t even know why he was jealous of him at all. It’s not like he wanted to have all these people as friends, he just didn’t like seeing them all over his roommate when he couldn’t work out why, if Takao was friends with everyone else in the world, it felt like Shun just hadn’t made the cut.

He wondered if it was just some kind of middle child issue he’d never realised he had.

Takao and his friend continued to flirt and giggle like Shun wasn’t even in the room. Shun picked up things and slammed them back down somewhere else in his effort to find something more distracting to do that listen to them, muttering apologies whenever they stopped to stare at him for it.

By the time she left several minutes later, Takao saying he’d be right behind her, Shun was already cutting it a little close. He changed quickly, keeping his back to Takao who was still hanging around for some reason.

“You sure you don’t want to come out?” Takao asked. “We’re going to have a–”

“No, I don’t,” Shun said flatly. “I told you, I have an interview.”

“Boring!” Takao whined. “Don’t you ever want to do anything more meaningful with your time than work?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m always looking for meaningful one night stands,” Takao went silent, and Shun tried using his eagle eye, but couldn’t even focus enough to do that. “Not everyone can just waste all their time messing around with girls and getting trashed. You should take something seriously for once.”

He turned around to actually look at Takao, not sure what else he was going to say but knowing he meant to go on, but his bad mood deflated as soon as he saw the look on his face. He’d seen people snap at Takao, he’d seen people yell at him until they were blue in the face and he’d only been there a week, and Takao always seemed to just let it roll off him. This was the first time he’d actually seen him look offended.

“I didn’t mean that,” he started, but Takao shook his head, recovering quickly – smiling even.

“Good luck with your interview,” he said, leaving before Shun could say any more.

He wasn’t really mad at Takao – at least, he couldn’t think of any rational reason why he would be. He didn’t mean to take it out on him. But really, shouldn’t Takao be taking this more seriously?

He sighed, checking the time. He’d have to hurry if he wanted to get there on time now.


	5. "This is mine. Are we clear?"

The interview went better than expected. So well that it hardly even happened. Somewhere between the moment when he’d walked through the door and when said hello and shook hands with the manager, the interview must have happened without him realising, because the next thing he knew he was being shown to the staff room, measured for a uniform, and handed a contract to sign. The uniform was black pants with an obnoxiously patterned shirt that looked like it could have been fashionable when his grandparents were his age, and would come out of his first pay, but he supposed he could live with that.

The basketball try outs went… less well.

More first years had turned up to try out than he’d expected – including Takao. It wasn’t an unpopular team so Shun supposed he should have been prepared for there to be a lot of them. They lined up so that the coach could get a look at them, ask them questions, and give them a speech about what he expected before he would let them even touch the ball. Shun didn’t take any of the speech in. From the moment Shun had announced his position as point guard, barely a minute after Takao had said the same, Takao had had his eyes glued on him and Shun was concentrating so hard on trying not to pay attention to the look boring into the side of his head that he missed what the coach said to them and hesitated when he heard the whistle, leaving him seconds behind everyone else when he realised they were supposed to be running.

The coach went hard on them all, testing their skill and stamina with different exercises until several of the less dedicated gave up and dropped out on their own and even the strongest of them were struggling.

Shun kept up, barely. His muscles burned and his lungs screamed at him, but he kept up with the majority of the group. No matter what he did though, Takao was ahead of him. He was faster, stronger, more agile, quicker to react, and Shun could only stare at his back and wonder how someone who spent all their time partying could be making everyone else in the room look like they’d never trained a day in their life. The workout was more than he’d been used to in a long time, and he regretted his year off from practising even more now.

Though in the beginning there were a handful of guys competing for the point guard position, most of the others had dropped out and left only four of them. One of them was determined and was clearly giving it his all, but physically he was slow and his mind seemed kind of distant. The second was capable, but seemed unmotivated. Against them he was sure he could have won, but the third was Takao, outdoing them all.

When they were put into teams and set to play against each other, Shun wasn’t surprised to see Takao standing opposite him. Seeing him suddenly looking so focused and serious, Shun was so dumbfounded by the change in Takao from his usual laid back and easy going aura that he couldn’t look away even when the intensity in his eyes was very suddenly aimed at him.

Takao’s smirk was wolfish. “This is mine. Are we clear?”

Shun blinked, too stunned to even flinch at his goading tone. Takao seemed to expect more of a response, but before he could think of anything to say in reply to that the whistle screeched behind him and the coach was yelling at them to get into position.

Takao wasn’t just faster than him, he seemed to see every move before it was made, cutting Shun off every time before he could touch the ball. His eagle eye, out of practice from lack of regular use, wasn’t giving him the advantage it used to. Already exhausted by the now unfamiliar strain on his body from their long ‘warm up’, all it took was a moment of confusion over Takao’s footwork and half a second of hesitation before making the wrong move for Shun lose his balance and fall backwards, landing hard.

Too winded to move, he just lay there catching his breath, and opened his eyes, expecting to see Takao looking smug, but he only looked puzzled.

Disappointed, he frowned down at him. “I thought you’d put up more of a fight.”

Shun really didn’t know what to make of that, except that apparently even the guy who hated him expected something better from him, but he had no time to mull over it with the coach yelling at him to get off the floor. He picked himself back up, ignoring the way his legs shook with exertion as he did, and threw himself back into it, his resolve fortified.


	6. “Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. Yes is the answer.”

The job was easy enough once he got the hang of it, though being new, everything he did was supervised and so his manager was constantly there to remind him under her breath to smile so that he seemed to spend his whole day with his face fixed in the same expression for so long that his cheeks ached whenever he got the chance to relax them.

For a while they had him cleaning and nothing else before he was allowed to actually take orders, handle money, and make coffee. So it was with the biggest nervous fake smile he’d ever worn in his life that he turned to his next customer from behind the counter, ready to give his scripted lines, and instead blurted out, “Why are _you_ here?”

He jumped, feeling the heat of the glare from his manager before he heard her cough.

“I mean…”

“Oh, Izuki-kun? You work here?”

Shun didn’t mean to be rude, he was just surprised. Takao didn’t seem to take offence at least, but he stammered out an apology and the usual greeting for his manager’s sake anyway. Even to him it sounded stiff and panicked, his voice squeaking a little from being wound too tight under constant scrutiny, but that only made Takao snicker. He heard his manager behind him make one of her ‘acceptable, I guess’ noises.

He breathed again when Takao began making his order.

They hadn’t really had time to speak much since the basketball try outs. Takao, to absolutely no one’s surprise being the best they had, made starting position. Shun was on the bench. They went to practice every day but were kept too busy to do much else than actually practice, and though Shun could feel himself improving again, every time he was put against Takao in their coach’s never ending practice matches the frustration he felt at himself for his time off would rise again and he was easily outplayed.

Outside of basketball Takao seemed to be around less than usual. He was barely in their room at all, spending even more of his free time going out with his friends than before. It took Shun a little while to figure out that his anger wasn’t with Takao at all, but with himself. Maybe if he hadn’t shut himself off from life for a whole year he would be able to play well, keep up with the work load, and have a social life too.

He’d spent all that time assuming Takao didn’t like him, but by the time he realised that with the pressure of the workload that came with rejoining his peers he’d been the one being unfriendly, he’d probably made that come true himself.

Takao didn’t seem like he held a grudge over his behaviour, but Shun still felt like he hadn’t apologised properly. Even if they weren’t going to spend a lot of time actually together in the room, they did have to live together, and Shun… he really wanted Takao to like him.

“I’ll bring it over for you,” he said, staring down at the notepad he’d written the order down on. Whenever he tried to look Takao in the eyes he was assaulted with a feeling of something like guilt or panic.

Takao waited a moment before asking, “How much?”

“Um,” Shun floundered. He’d never taken a coffee order this complicated. In desperation to say _something_ he found himself saying, “It’s on the house.”

“It is not!”

Shun turned cold at the sound of her harsh voice and corrected himself, “I mean, it’s… on me?”

He glanced back at her, seeing her frown at him like he was stupid, but she shrugged. There was only so much silence he could take from Takao before he had to look at him. The second their eyes met Takao flashed him that maddeningly sunny grin and Shun had to look away again, feeling the heat in the room rise.

Takao thanked him and left to grab a table while Shun tried to make his drink with shaky fingers. He should probably be used to making a fool of himself in front of Takao, or at least start getting used to it. Maybe it was the other boy’s natural confidence that Shun would never have, or the way he made Shun feel like he was being assessed in a totally different way than when his manager or their coach did, but the more time he spent with him the more Shun found himself affected.

He checked over the order several times, making sure he got it right, and then took a deep breath before he carried it over to where Takao was sat. He stopped suddenly when someone else reached the table before him and pulled out the seat to sit down. He couldn’t see Takao’s face – having had to walk around the long counter and approach the table from the other side – but he didn’t sound surprised at all, greeting her casually as she sat across the little table from him like he’d been expecting her, so Shun guessed they must have arranged to meet there.

He didn’t recognise her, but apparently he didn’t need to know who she was to be irritated by her just being there. It was nothing personal against her, just that seeing Takao so close with his other friends irritated him when he could hardly get a decent conversation with him.

 _Petty,_ he told himself, shaking it out of his mind.

He approached the table, standing between them and slowly placing the cup in front of Takao while his thoughts ran crazy trying to think of something relevant enough to say so that he wouldn’t have to walk away yet.

“Oh,” the girl said, noticing him, “get me a coffee too will you? Really milky, thanks.”

She hardly even looked up at him.

“…Sure.”

He looked at Takao, meeting his eyes for barely a second before he hurried away again to fetch the other drink. He tried not to watch them while he made it, but couldn’t help peeking once or twice or twenty times. They looked comfortable with each other; laughing with each other, her reaching over to touch his arm or wipe a spot of foam from where he kept managing to get it on his face, him seeming to be smiling brighter every time Shun looked over at them. When he laughed Shun didn’t know how the sound of it and the smile didn’t knock her breathless.

They looked good together. Takao’s chin was rested on one hand, occasionally touching his lips when he spoke, and Shun found himself subconsciously wetting his own lips with his tongue, swallowing when Takao took a drink. Even when he wanted to look away his gaze was drawn to Takao’s eyes; they were too striking to not constantly notice them, glinting playfully from under his bangs. Really, it was no wonder that Takao was able to steal the attention in any room whenever he wanted to. And Shun supposed she was pretty too. He kind of hated it.

A searing heat suddenly spread over his hand, making him hiss in pain and practically throw the overflowing cup reflexively into to the sink, which luckily was right by his side. Fortunately nothing was smashed, but he had to keep his hand under the cold water for several minutes while his manager chewed him out for not being careful. He supposed that was what he deserved for staring resentfully across the room instead of paying attention. At least it wasn’t dangerously hot since he’d already poured a lot of milk in the cup.

He assured the manager that he could continue and then remade the drink, keeping his eyes and his mind on the task this time.

When he arrived at the table again he overheard her speaking, “Go on then.”

“Go on then… what?” Takao asked.

“Give me your best worst pick up line.”

“My best _worst_ …”

“Right now,” she insisted forcefully. “Everyone loves an awful pick up line. I want one. Now!”

“Uhhh,” Takao shook his head, obviously faltering with the sudden demand. “Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. Yes is the answer.”

She only stared pitifully at him and shook her head, her eyes suddenly tired. “I am so disappointed in you.”

“Well…” he spluttered, “I was under pressure. It wasn’t _that_ bad.”

“It was really awful,” she scoffed, “and not in a good way,” and then her eyes flicked up over Takao’s shoulder, “wasn’t it, Izuki-kun?”

Shun started, surprised to find that she knew his name. He guessed that Takao must have mentioned him but he didn’t dare ask, not sure it could have been anything good. For a second he forgot to move, but then remembered the coffee in his hand and placed it on the table in front of her. They were both watching him silently.

“Um,” his eyes darted back and forth between them, not sure who was the worst choice to look at right now. He didn’t want to agree with her but, well, “Yeah, sorry, it was terrible.”

“No one is ever on my side,” Takao frowned, but then turned his mischievous smile on Shun. “Go on then, you do better.”

“What…”

“Yeah, you do one,” she urged him, leaning closer.

Shun stood rooted to the spot, blinking at them. He didn’t even know her. He didn’t even know what she knew about him. He looked back at his manager, not sure if he was making sure she wasn’t within hearing distance or hoping she would come rescue him.

“Come on,” Takao demanded, beaming. He grabbed Shun’s sleeve, tugging on it as though to pull a reply out of him. Shun looked at him.

Before he could stop himself he was saying, “I don’t ever need the sun when you’re here, because your smile lights up my day.”

His ability to deliver the line deadpan was all that saved him from wanting to crawl under a table and hide until they left once they started laughing at him. Still, he’d have at least escaped back to the bar if not for the fact that she hadn’t paid for her coffee yet.

“See, that’s how you do it,” she said to Takao. “You just can’t compete with that.”

Takao, still grinning, raised his eyebrows like he was taking that as a challenge, but didn’t take his eyes off of Shun. “Oh yeah?”

Shun had to look away from him. He couldn’t look at the girl either. Instead he looked down at her coffee cup, wishing he could have just continued disliking her. She wasn’t awful enough to hate, but now he was sure she was the reason why Takao was never around anymore.

“Have you two been dating long?” He asked, trying to fill the silence at the table.

But the silence only got thicker. He looked up to see them staring at him, all trace of smiles gone. He wondered if he’d accidentally hit a touchy subject.

“Uh,” Takao opened his mouth, but no real words came out.

“I’m gay,” she said flatly.

“Oh, sorry… for assuming,” Shun said, feeling like an idiot again. He thought mayve Takao seemed to relax a little, but when no one made any attempt to move or say anything again for a while he just had to get away. His manager was glaring at him from behind the till where she was doing his job for him and he didn’t need to look around at her to see it. He pointed to the coffee, now half empty. “You still haven’t paid.”

She only looked at Takao, and Takao began searching his own pockets for change.

Shun waited for all of three long seconds before he muttered, “It’s fine, I’ll get this one too,” and hurried to get back to work without lingering for a response.


	7. "I don't like being told what to do unless I'm naked."

No one had told Shun that the uniform wasn’t permanent – it seemed that they had all just assumed he knew about the uniform thing when he’d applied for the job – so it had come as a shock to him when he turned up for an early shift one morning to find a new set of completely different clothes waiting for him. No explanation, just a neatly folded pile of plastic wrapped garments and a post-it with his name scrawled on it stuck on top.

“It’s next month’s uniform,” was all he was told by one of his coworkers, who’d given him a look like he was stupid when he’d asked him about it.

“Oh, yeah,” was all he could say, flatly and wondering if he agreed with that. Surely there must have been a sign up or something mentioned during his brief interview that he should have noticed.

As it turned out, the uniform changed every month, and the cost would be taken from every pay check. He was pretty sure he didn’t agree to this. Still, it was a job, and it wasn’t a badly paying job either, so that wouldn’t be too awful, except that the uniforms were chosen by popular customer vote and the trend was apparently very rarely leaning towards what looked sensible or dignified.

He finally found all this out from his manager, who also pointed out that he would get to keep all of the uniforms, which she told him in a voice that made it sound an awful lot like she somehow thought this was a great bonus that he should be grateful for.

At least they were perfectly willing to work hours around when he had classes, and so after only a couple hours he swapped places with someone else so that he could get back and get changed.

Takao barely stirred when Shun stepped into the room. He wasn’t surprised; Takao had been out the entire previous day and night, and it had been the same the day before that. Shun couldn’t complain anymore, not much at least. Takao seemed to take a little more care not to be too noisy, and he was still up in just about enough time to turn up to his classes the next day – groggy and less chatty than usual, but up – and he never missed a practice, so Shun couldn’t even argue that his partying was affecting his ability to keep up.

He expected Takao to maybe be eating breakfast by the time Shun finished his classes, but he returned to their room to find it empty but for the clothes, papers, and trash strewn around haphazardly. The mess was common – though thankfully Takao was getting better since they’d settled in at not leaving the place looking like his wardrobe had blown up at least – and Shun set to work straightening it up so that he wouldn’t trip over anything, but given that it was rare for Takao to bother getting out of bed before midday unless he absolutely had to and he knew Takao had no classes that day, Shun fully expected to come back from the rest of his shift at the café to find him asleep among a whole new wreckage of his own things, where he would no doubt stay until he decided to go back out again.

He resisted a frown of disapproval. Their team had their first game of the year coming up, and Takao was a starter. He would be better to concentrate on school stuff and resting for practice, or anything that wasn’t whatever he did while he was goofing off. It wouldn’t matter in the end; he’d still be better than Shun without trying.

But when he came back again after work it was to find the place exactly as he’d left it, including empty of Takao. He just seemed to be spending even more time than usual away from the room, and Shun was beginning to get paranoid that he’d been too weird since trying to be friendly.

He rushed through some of the easier homework he had to do, turning to stare at the door in expectation whenever he heard voices from out in the corridor only to be disappointed, until late into the night when his eyelids were dropping and he was risking falling asleep right there at his desk.

It felt like barely a moment since he’d fallen asleep when the door opened, waking him again. Takao said nothing, not even taking the time to kick off his shoes before dropping face down onto his bed, missing his pillow completely.

Blinking slowly, his eyes heavy with sleep, Shun watched Takao’s back rise and fall. When it was clear that Takao wasn’t going to move again for the night, Shun forced himself to get up and cross the gap between their beds. He hesitated, hovering over where Takao’s feet hung over the end of the bed for a moment not wanting to wake him or cross boundaries, but the evidence so far suggested he’d have a job doing either if he was trying.

He pulled off the first shoe carefully, taking the time to unlace and loosen it. When Takao didn’t stir at all from it he figured it was safe to just yank off the second one. Shun rough dragged the blanket half out from under him and threw it over him. Takao slept peacefully through it.

Figuring that was good enough Shun paused before going back to his own bed, taking a second to roll his eyes and let out a quiet breath of laughter to himself as he looked down at Takao. He was almost impressed by his ability to stay so heavily asleep, his face pressed against the mattress, squishing his cheek and making his lips push out comically. But he was peaceful and breathing softly.

Shun’s face warmed and he hurried back to his own bed, shaking his head a little at himself. There was no reason to be embarrassed about helping his roommate or wanting to make sure one of their team’s starting players was better taken care of before a game, and he clearly wasn’t going to take care of himself tonight.

*

The new uniform looked ridiculous. Shun was bright yellow from head to toe and felt like a cartoon character. He stood in the bathroom, hand on the door handle for several long minutes before he could bring himself to open it.

It didn’t help when Takao took one look at him when he stepped out into the room and burst out laughing.

“You should wear that for the game,” he told him, looking him up and down with a smirk. “They won’t even notice the ball.”

Shun groaned, quickly pulling on a hoodie to at least hide the top half, stashing the matching cap in his pocket to put on when he got there. Takao shot him one last grin before leaving with a friend.

At least at work Shun wasn’t the only one wearing the uniform.

“They key,” one of the girls told him when he grimaced at himself one more time in the mirror in the back room when he took his break, “is to convince yourself that you like it for its hideousness.”

She jammed the cap on her head, “And pretend that that isn’t your crush standing out there waiting for you to serve them.”

In panic, Shun ran through around forty different arguments to deny that he had any crush in the second it took him to realise she was talking to herself. He glanced out through the tiny window on the door and saw a guy he was certain he’d never seen in his life.

“I can go back out serve him instead… if you want?” He offered.

“No,” she shook her head, managing a resigned smile. “I’ll cope.”

When he ordered twelve drinks and food for the study group that had come in with him and settled in the far corner, and Shun could only feel guiltily relieved that he didn’t have to serve them after all. A couple of them came back to order another drink a while later, but it wasn’t until almost three hours later that they all got up to leave and Shun recognised Takao’s friend that he’d left the room with earlier among them. Another moment and he realised he recognised several of them.

“Takao isn’t with you?” He asked as he passed them to clear their table.

She rolled her eyes as she swung a bag full of books over her shoulder. “He was supposed to be.”

“Where is he?” The question was out before he could help himself, but she didn’t seem to think anything of it and merely shrugged.

“Where he always is,” she sighed.

“Oh,” Shun nodded, trying to look like he knew what that meant.

On her way out she laughed, adding, “Would anyone even be surprised if he just moved into the place. He’ll announce his engagement to that hoop any day now.”

She didn’t wait for an answering before giving a friendly wave and leaving. Shun stood for several seconds, trying to decipher if he was misunderstanding that last part and ‘hoop’ was some kind of new slang that hadn’t reached him yet.

Takao wasn’t there when he got back, but Shun hadn’t expected him to be. He showered and changed, all the time telling himself he wouldn’t go anywhere. He wasn’t going out. He was staying in to do his homework. He kept telling himself this until he’d already put on his shoes and jacket and left the room.

He didn’t actually expect to find Takao there, but he heard the squeak of sneakers and the echo of the ball from the slightly ajar door as he approached the gym. There were only one set of lights on over the hoop at the far end where he was practicing, leaving the rest in mostly darkness.

Shun watched for a moment, and then opened the door silently, just enough that he could see without squinting through the crack. He watched, half trying to come up with an excuse for being here, something to say instead of standing there staring in silence, and half deliberated over turning around and leaving him to it.

Takao moved as fast as he did in practice with the rest of the team, driving himself just as hard as if their coach was drilling him. Even from where he was in the dark, with the use of his eagle eye, Shun could see that he had been at it for some time. His shirt was damp with it, his hair clung to his skin around his neck and fell heavily in his eyes, which were sharp and focused, despite how tired he clearly was.

Shun felt a pang, missing the times when he practiced like that; giving his all and more every single day – but he couldn’t look away. He could almost feel himself itching to be in there, pushing himself until he could feel it burning the stress out of him. His hand was already on the door, ready to pull it open, but he just wouldn’t move.

Ten minutes went by – maybe twenty, maybe more – before Takao stopped, still facing with his back to Shun, and let the ball bounce away from him. It rolled to an eventual stop near the wall while he leaned down, bent forward with his hands braced on his legs to catch his breath.

Shun tried to look away, but he felt lost in a daze from watching. He should definitely leave. It wasn’t too late to just go back to the room and get his homework done. He was pretty sure now that he would stand there all night before he made himself say anything.

Takao straightened his back again, reaching up to stretch his arms over his head, his muscles flexing as he pulled them down again to roll his shoulders. Shun pressed his lips tight, mentally kicking himself over his assumptions that Takao never did anything but waste his time. He should have noticed before, or maybe he did and didn’t want to connect the dots, but it was obvious now where Takao’s ‘wasted time’ was being spent.

“You just gonna stand there all night?”

Shun felt for a moment as though he’d missed a step.

Takao waited a second before turning his head to look behind him and throw Shun a smirk. Satisfied with the dumbstruck expression he was greeted by, he turned away again, leaving Shun to agonise over being caught watching while he went to collect the ball from where it had stopped.

He tried to speak, but was so caught off his guard he ended up just standing there opening his mouth like a fish until Takao crossed the gym to stand in front of him, opening the door a little wider so that he could lean his arm against the frame.

Shun felt sure he was breathing just as heavily without the workout. He wanted to take a step back but somehow felt that would only make Takao laugh. Licking his lips, he searched for anything to break the silence. He wondered if he was about to somehow start running away without meaning to.

“You’re not supposed to be in here this late,” was what came out of his mouth when he finally found his voice.

“Yeah, well,” Takao shrugged, looking entertained. “I don’t like being told what to do unless I’m naked.” He winked, his amused grin growing a little wider when Shun fell quiet again, not sure how to respond to that, until Takao did laugh at him.

“Won’t you get into trouble if you’re caught?”

“Probably,” he shrugged again. And then, his eyes glittering, he turned a little, moving aside so that Shun could see the rest of the gym again, and glanced back behind himself at the hoop before looking back at Shun. “So, are you gonna come in?”

Shun gave himself a moment to figure out whether Takao was being serious or not, and then stepped inside before he could change his mind and decide to run away after all. Takao shut the door behind them, following Shun back inside. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to ask how he’d gotten in in the first place without a key.

Instead of continuing his practice, Takao sat on a bench and left the ball on the floor at his feet. He picked up his water, drinking deeply from it while Shun dithered for several long seconds, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do. It would be weird if he sat far away on another bench, especially since they were all in the dark, but Takao was sitting right in the middle of the bench. Would it be weirder to try to sit right on the end? Would it make his awkward nerves too obvious? Would he be intruding on Takao’s personal space if he just sat next to him? Would he seem unfriendly if he didn’t?

“Relax,” Takao sighed, jolting Shun out of his internal debate, “I’m taking a break right now. We’ll play after so just sit down and give me a minute.”

“You… want to practice with me?” Shun was more surprised by that than how relieved he was at Takao misinterpreting his anxiety for impatience, and he sat on the bench next  to him – not close enough that they were touching, but closer than he thought he would have dared.

Takao gave him a small confused smile, tilting his head a little. Shun tried to meet his intense gaze, but couldn’t hold it and ended up letting his eyes rest of his smile instead. “Isn’t that why you’re here? To practice?”

Too distracted to realise that he could have just gone along with it, Shun answered honestly, “I was looking for you.” He felt himself flush, glad for the dim lights. “I mean, I just wondered where you go. I didn’t think this was where you’d be. I thought you were… out.”

“Out?”

“At a party.” Shun just shrugged, feeling kind of stupid.

“Is there a party I should be at tonight?”

“No, I mean, not just tonight –”

“You mean _every_ night?”

They stared at each other for a few long seconds, and then Takao threw back his head and laughed, so loud and carefree and radiant that Shun felt himself smiling too as he watched. Somehow it felt worth making a fool of himself for.

“I guess a couple of things make more sense now,” Takao said when his wild hooting delight had simmered back down to a friendly chuckle. Eventually even that faded away, but Takao continued smiling at him and even there in the weakly lit gym it was like staring into the sun, but Shun couldn’t look away.

Takao’s smile softened. He looked thoughtful, like he was carefully considering something. He put down his water bottle and shifted on the bench, leaning in slowly. Shun could only sit frozen and dazed, and watch with his stomach twisting tighter in knots as he got closer. When he was only a breath away he paused, wetting his lips with his tongue, and Shun copied it before he could tell himself not to.

“Hey,” he said, his voice quiet, “do you have a map?”

Confused, Shun felt his fists clenching on his knees. He tried to ask “Why?” but the question didn’t seem to want to come out properly. For a second it seemed like Takao would lean in even closer and Shun had to force himself not to lean back or fall off the bench, realising that he needn’t have worried that getting in his personal space would offend Takao. He could have counted his eyelashes even there in the semidarkness.

Takao carried on before Shun could form a response, “Because I could get lost in your eyes.”

For a second Shun could have almost sworn he could hear the ball hitting the floor again, but it was just his own pulse beating in his ears and his heart hammering in his chest. He didn’t know how to react to this.

Before he could do anything however, Takao suddenly sat up straighter and beamed at him. “So, how d’you like that one then?”

Another moment of confused silence passed.

 “Uh…” Shun felt his head shaking. He wasn’t really sure why.

“That was a good one, right?” He said delightedly. “And she said I couldn’t compete.”

Shun remembered the conversation from a few days ago at work.

“It was okay,” he managed, his voice cracking a little as he added, “I guess.”

Takao pouted. “Oh come on, that was a winner!” He poked Shun in the side with a finger, making him jerk in surprise, and jumped to his feet, moving away quickly in case he retaliated. He laughed, smirking as he joked, “Admit it, you totally would have fallen for that one if I’d given it to you for real.” Sighing theatrically to himself, he shrugged. “I’m just that irresistible.”

Shun rolled his eyes, grabbing the ball from the floor to throw at him. Takao caught it easily with another ringing laugh and tossed it back. “Come on then. Let’s get some practice in before someone comes to kick us out.”


	8. "What's in it for me?"

Shun was learning that becoming friends with Takao was An Experience; not so much in the things that happened, but in the effect Takao had on people. It made Shun’s chest ache in the most weirdly wonderful way to be around him, and he didn’t know how anyone could stand it.

It was almost like their first few days all over again, except this time, without the stress of just having just started new classes and finally being more settled into it, it wasn’t quite as dramatically difficult as it had first appeared. Whenever Takao couldn’t shut up, Shun found that he forgot what he was doing so that he could listen, content to let Takao fill the quiet. When he was bored he still found the most childish ways of demanding attention, but it made Shun want to smile and give that attention to him. Takao’s ‘many friends’ quite often turned out to actually be tutors – making Shun’s stomach squirm a little with guilt at having judged him too quickly – or friends he’d made on the cheerleading squad because of his friendship with their captain – making Shun’s stomach squirm with something that he thought was maybe not guilt, but just as unpleasant.

In fact there wasn’t many things Takao did that _didn’t_ give Shun a weird feeling in one way or another. He’d never had a friend who was so… touchy. Not in the emotionally sensitive way, he just couldn’t seem to mind boundaries. At first it was small things like Takao maybe prodding him in the arm with a finger before starting a conversation or sitting a little closer than Shun was sure any of his few previous friends would have, but it seemed Takao grew comfortable with people much faster than anyone Shun had ever known. Before long he found himself being introduced to Takao’s other friends, each time with an arm around his shoulders, Takao’s fingers holding on tight light he thought he might try to run off. And it seemed he couldn’t bear to so much as pass him between classes without at least reaching out to grab him by the arm in an enthusiastic greeting before rushing off again.

It had unnerved Shun at first, finding that they’d gone from barely friendly to this, and he was finding that no matter how often it happened, it always made him feel so warm, but when they weren’t alone he’d be reminded that Takao was just like that with everyone, and seeing it made Shun irritated. It made him want to draw Takao’s attention back to himself. Maybe he just wanted to feel like someone’s most important friend for once, hating the reminder that they were only even friends now because they were roommates and he wasn’t that special.

He was on his way to work one depressingly beautiful day a few weeks later when he heard his phone buzz, and immediately hurried to retrieve it from his bag, almost certain he knew who it would be. The only people who called him regularly were his family and Takao. It was only a text, but he smiled to himself when he saw Takao’s name and the winking emoji with its tongue out – just as Takao had put it as himself.

Takao had insisted they exchange phone numbers, even though they spent the majority of their time outside of classes together now that Shun had somehow managed to get himself invited to every one of Takao’s ‘unofficial’ practices and couldn’t seem able to refuse whenever Takao shot him a grin and asked if he was coming along.

The extra time practicing would surely pay off, but for the moment he felt a little too distracted to really get as much out of it as he hoped he could. His concentration was always focused more on Takao’s movements than on his own. If he didn’t then Takao’s faster reflexes and reaction time would beat him easily, but he would sometimes get too caught up in watching the fluidity of Takao’s movements to react to them himself. It was just… impressive. And maybe a little captivating.

The text read, _“what are you doing tonight”_

 _“Working.”_ Shun hesitated before sending. It seemed a little abrupt. He began typing out more, but then changed his mind again and shortened it to just, “ _Working again.”_ But still wavered, not sure it was the right tone. He felt a little silly fretting over a text, but Takao still made him a little nervous and he felt a compulsion to say the right thing, and in the right way. In the end, familiar now with Takao’s love of abusing the smiley face options, he settled on, _“Working again :(”_

Deciding that that felt friendlier, he sent it before he could spend any more time second guessing himself over a simple message. However when he got no reply at all he felt his anxiety trickling back. Takao always replied, no matter what. Even if it was a single word or emoji he never left Shun to have the last word. He opened his messages again and just held it for a while, trying to concentrate on looking for traffic while he decided what else he could say. He didn’t want to seem desperate, and for anyone else he would have probably just left it at that, but he’d grown used to having Takao be the one giving and demanding attention and was oddly _bothered_ that he should have to seek it out for himself. Takao had no problems sending multiple messages in succession so he was sure he’d think nothing if Shun sent one more?

Feeling ridiculous, he quickly typed out another short message, aggravated with himself for being so… clingy?

He was definitely having trouble lately putting words to feelings when it came to Takao.

 _“You?”_ He hit send and put his phone away again in his bag, determined that if he didn’t get a reply this time he didn’t really care that much. It didn’t matter.

He heard his phone buzz almost immediately after he’d closed his bag and opened it to take it out again almost embarrassingly fast. When he read the message though, he frowned, so confused with what it said that he stopped walking and just stood there staring down at it for a moment, trying to figure it out.

_“haha i like where this is going ;) lol”_

He read his sent messages again, even more confused. Maybe Takao had just sent it to the wrong person?

He stared at it for several seconds longer, rereading the conversation and trying to figure out how he was supposed to respond to that, before he noticed the little red symbol next to his first message and the “Not Delivered” under it. He already knew now how the conversation looked on the other side, but reread it one more time without that message anyway before putting his face in his hand, feeling it burn.

He made several frantic attempts at correcting it, sending all of them. In panic when Takao didn’t reply, he called him instead, but seconds into explaining himself again Takao interrupted with a laugh.

“Uhuh, right,” he said through his giggling. “Playing it cool then – good call.”

“What? I’m not–”

“Hey, don’t worry so much,” Takao told him. “I was joking.”

Shun ignored that hearing that didn’t really make him feel better. It was nice hearing Takao laugh at least.

“Anyway, I need your help,” Takao told him. “We’ve got a game at the park and we need one more player.”

“You… want _me_ to play?” He asked, surprised. There were plenty of people better than him on the team, and they weren’t lacking a point guard.

“Uhh, yeah.”

“What about whoever usually plays? Don’t you have anyone else?”

“They couldn’t make it,” he sighed loudly. “Everyone is busy. They have _other responsibilities_ or something.”

Shun could practically hear the finger air quotations. He rolled his eyes and held back a sigh. It was tempting. “I have to work too.”

“What’s the uniform this month? I didn’t see the new one yet,” Takao asked.

The sudden change of topic took Shun a little by surprise. He reluctantly pulled the front of his jacket out so he could look down at the new uniform, internally cringing at it when he did, glad he’d decided to wear his regular clothes on top of it. He could change out of them when he got there and save himself the humiliation.

“It’s uh, pretty boring actually,” he lied. “Nothing special this month.”

“Hmmm,” Takao hummed quietly, taking a few seconds before adding, “You should call in sick.”

It was a bad idea. He shouldn’t. It was already too late. He really shouldn’t miss work just to play streetball in the park.

“I’m already on my way to work,” he said, pretending to the both of them like he wasn’t going to let himself be convinced anyway.

“So you’re not there yet. Come on, _please!_ I need you.”

Shun had to give himself a moment, feeling warm from that – even if he did only mean it because they were a player down. Already turning around to walk the other way, he asked, “What’s in it for me?”

“Uh, you’ll get to spend your afternoon with me instead of at work,” Takao said incredulously. “Literally what more could anyone ever want?”

Shun ducked his head and couldn’t help laughing quietly. He cleared his throat and took his time before replying, “I guess I could see what I can do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> texts from this https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/41/03/89/410389143a1da5d6862c23e76bbbf3fe.jpg


	9. Extra ?

It wasn’t too difficult to find someone to cover for him – there was never no one who wanted the extra hours bad enough that they wouldn't jump at a last minute offer. When he got back to the room he found Takao there waiting for him already, lounging back on his bed in his basketball shorts and tapping at his phone. He looked up when Shun walked in and smiled his wide smile, and Shun felt his chest swoop. With excitement. Excitement to play basketball.

With Takao.

He looked away and hurried past to get to his drawers, muttering about getting changed first, but Takao sat up and grabbed the bottom of his jacket as he passed.

“That’s not the uniform,” he said, giving it a couple of tugs.

“No,” Shun said slowly.

“Show me,” he demanded.

“Why?”

Takao smirked. “You’re hiding it. Besides, I have to see them all.”

“They’re not pokemon.” Shun rolled his eyes and tried to sound irritated, but Takao's brightening grin told him he didn't quite pull it off. “I thought you called me to play basketball I can just go back to work.” He couldn’t, he’d already given away his shift, but that wasn’t the point. Takao only wanted to make fun of him.

“Yeah, yeah, I did. We will. This’ll only take a second,” he gave the jacket another few impatient tugs. “Come _ooonn_.”

Shun told himself to refuse, but in the end, against his own better judgement, he sighed and began kicking off his shoes. Recognising his victory, Takao released Shun’ jacket and sat back, crossing his legs on the bed. He whistling as Shun took off his jacket.

Before he could help himself, Shun threw the jacket in Takao’s face said, “I should have guessed all you really wanted was to watch me strip.”

He expected laughter, more teasing, but Takao lowered the jacket only to show an odd strained expression. Shun stilled and waited until Takao indignantly choked out, “That’s- not-”

“…I was _joking_.”

Takao forced a laugh and Shun felt his face warming. That wasn’t the kind of rejection he was used to receiving after making a joke. Clearly Takao thought it was only okay to make those kinds of jokes when he was the one doing it and was offended at the idea of it being serious.

Shun finished pulling off the layer of clothes on top of his uniform in silence, but it was hard to maintain an air of righteous affront when he could hear Takao struggling to stifle laughter that was slowly increasing in both volume and pitch.

Shun sighed and looked down at the hideous garment – a single bodysuit covering him neck to toes in the brightest shade of orange anyone could possibly have chosen, and every inch of it layered in ruffles and frills. Even his manager had broken this one to them pityingly.

“What is that even supposed to be?” Takao asked flicking at the frills hanging off of Shun’s sleeve.

He could only shrug in reply and give Takao a moment to get it out of his system before he said he was going to get changed in the bathroom.

“You should just wear that.” Takao called after him, still laughing.

Shun paused in the bathroom doorway, struck with sudden inspiration, and turned to Takao to say, “It’d suit you better.”

“Well I do have a natural talent of making anything look good,” Takao said, “but I’ll let you keep that one for yourself.”

Shun sagged a little, but told himself he shouldn’t be disappointed by now. People generally either just didn’t get why it was funny or hated him for them, so he supposed not even noticing them at all was better than that at least.

He shut the door before he was inclined to agree with Takao’s statement that he probably _could_ make anything look good, even if it was… whatever this was.

“Aren’t you glad I got you out of that now?” Takao called through the door.

“Mm,” Shun hummed, busy concentrating on getting himself out of the ridiculous contraption they were calling a uniform for the next few weeks. He had to contort himself slightly to get to the fastenings on his own, but with a bit of patience and practiced flexibility, he was thankfully able to escape from it without having to go back out in shame to ask Takao to help.

After the brief silent battle was over, he discarded the flouncy costume on their shared bathroom floor and gratefully dressed himself instead in some of his regular practice clothes. He opened the door and found Takao staring down at something in his hand, which he lifted up a moment later with a grin.

“You didn’t tell me you were a second year,” he said, wiggling the ID card.

Shun didn’t try to take it back; that was one guaranteed way to make sure Takao would never let him have it, so instead he turned away to pull on his basketball shoes, watching with his back turned. “I’m not,” he said as he tied his laces, “I’m a first year.”

“Hmmm?” Takao smirked behind him, looking down at the card again. “How come? You take a year off? What was it for? Parties? Drinking? Travelling?”

Shun waited until there was a pause in Takao’s rapid fire questions before looking at him again. “Helping out at home,” was all he said.

Takao looked disappointed at first, but quickly perked up again.

“Why? Who do you live with? Your parents? Grandparents? You have any brothers or sisters? How far are you from home now? Why’d you have to wait?”

“My mom was sick and–”

Takao’s face blanched. “Oh… uh, sorry…”

“Oh, no it’s fine, it wasn’t serious or anything,” he said, shaking his head, “just she was still working full time so I stayed to help. My big sister moved back home now though, so,” he shrugged.

Takao still looked mildly uncomfortable for a minute, until he remembered the ID in his hand and his grin returned.

“So,” he said, offering the card back. He caught Shun’s wrist with quick fingers as he reached out to take it. “Should I start calling you _senpai_ from now on?”

The way he said it made it clear it was meant to be teasing, but although Shun couldn’t figure out _why_ it should get to him, somehow it just did.

Shun snorted, “Shut up.”

He tried pulling his hand back, but Takao was stronger and ready for him. He tried snatching the card with his other hand, but Takao seemed to somehow predict every move he made. And it apparently delighted him, since the grin on his face only grew when he caught Shun's other arm.

“But _senpai,_ ” He drew the word out, giggling at whatever the joke here was.

Shun tugged hard with both arms, but instead of pulling them from Takao’s strong grip, he only succeeded in suddenly dragging him closer and throwing them both off balance.

Takao regained his stability almost immediately, and took a few quick steps forward to stop Shun from falling back and heaving them both to the floor. Again, he cocked a victorious grin at Shun, who only wished he’d back up a little again instead of crowding him and making the room feel so close and was the room suddenly getting warmer and _was he leaning closer???_

Takao paused, close enough that Shun worried that somehow Takao feel the heat from his face. He forced himself to focus his eyes only on Takao’s, even if his other ‘sight’ was wandering. Somehow, maybe from living with Takao and getting so attuned to him, he was able to read when his body relaxed into the position they were in, resting his weight against where he held onto Shun’s arms, and the ever so slightly increased curl to his smirk that told him Takao was about to say something teasing again.

“You always go this red so easily, or is that just for me?”

Ignoring the way that that had probably only made the colour on his face deepen, Shun took the opportunity while Takao wasn’t expecting it to yank his arms free, snatching one of the pillows from the bed next to them and whacking it into the side of Takao’s head. He ducked out of the way in time to leave Takao to lose his balance and fall to the floor, going down with a short yelp.

Standing over him now it was easier for Shun to shake off his inhibition and fire back, “You know, if you wanted to hold my hand, you could’ve just asked.”

“I’m – that’s not – I didn’t –” Shun hid his amusement behind his well-practiced poker face, but somehow Takao seemed to notice, and his eyes narrowed as he picked himself up. “Listen, I’d _just_ got even, can’t you let me at least have a moment to gloat before you have to steal the point back?”

It took a moment to click into place for him, but then he realised, “You’re keeping score of when we…” He tried to say ‘flirt’, but it stuck in his throat. What was it even called if it wasn’t real?

“Of who comes up with the best pick-up lines?” He asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “Yes, of course I am. And I’m gonna win.”

Shun tilted his head. “I didn’t realise it was a competition.”

“Hey,” Takao said indignantly, pointing at him, “I was _challenged._ ” He poked his finger at Shun’s shoulder as he emphasised the word. Shun saw it coming before he began to move, and held his shoulder stiff, pushing forward so that he wouldn’t be shoved back. Something flickered behind Takao’s eyes for just a second – whatever it was, it was clear it excited him. “And I don’t back down from a challenge.”

That much was obvious already.

“Okay,” Shun nodded, “but I’m in the lead, right?”

Takao’s grin faltered for just a moment. “Only for now! Next time I–”

Takao’s phone chimed out a loud tune Shun didn’t recognise – his ringtone changed more often than Shun’s work uniform – interrupting whatever he was about to say. He answered the call without looking at the name on the screen and began speaking before the caller had a chance to say anything, grimacing as he told them that they were already on their way while silently ushering Shun towards the door to hurry.


	10. "Is that a challenge?"

The park where they were supposed to be playing luckily wasn’t far at all from campus, but Takao still made them run until the court was in sight.  Shun realised he shouldn’t have been surprised to see that the team was made up of at least mostly first string players from their college team, but it did gently nudge his feelings from excited nerves to “Why was I invited to this?”

“Uh, Takao?” He murmured as they got closer. “Are you sure it’s fine for me to be here?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

Before Shun could point out the obvious, they were suddenly under the disapproving glare of their captain. Shun guessed he was captain of the street team too, which was just his luck. He’d never been anything other than blatantly unimpressed by Shun.

“You’re late,” he said, though he directed it only at Takao. Shun wasn’t totally sure if that was a good thing or not.

“He had a work problem to escape before we could leave,” Takao jabbed a thumb in Shun’s direction, easily passing off the blame. Shun supposed it wasn’t _entirely_ a lie.

The captain looked at him, staring hard until Shun wondered if he was going to be told to leave, but eventually he simply jerked his head as a greeting and turned his back to them to head back to the group. Shun guessed that meant he’d do?

Takao didn’t seem concerned at all and grabbed Shun by the shoulders to steer him closer to where the rest of the team was warming up on the court.

He didn’t lag behind the rest of the team now like he had in the beginning, but he’d never been that person who had exceptional talent, strength, or stamina. All he had other than determination was a near lifetime of training and his eagle eye vision, and both of those had been out of practice for long enough that joining the college team had been a steeper mountain to climb than he’d expected it would be. Still, regular team practice and extra practice with Takao was paying off, and even in this short time he could feel it returning to him. His muscles relearning what they’d begun to forget.

Playing here with so many more skilled and practiced players on both sides, Shun felt like he should usually have been feeling the pressure get to him, being what they surely all – or at least most of them – considered the inferior player, but it lit something up inside of him.

Shun didn’t recognise anyone from the other team, but Takao seemed to know at least a few of them well enough to call them by name as he exchanged a few friendly jabs and taunts. He must have stared a little too hard, or a little too long, because Takao seemed to sense his eyes on him and stopped his joking around to turn and shoot him a questioning look. Caught by surprise, Shun quickly looked away again without meaning to, only to feel like now he’d made himself look like he was somehow hiding something. Luckily his face was already hot and pink.

Takao wasn’t the only one who noticed. Watching with his eagle eye Shun noticed that one of the guys on the other team said something to Takao. He couldn’t tell what expression the other guy was wearing, or read what he said to Takao – his eagle eye just wasn’t that good – but somehow he _did_ see Takao laugh, shake his head, and smirk as he punched the other boy in the arm before running towards Shun.

The warmth of Takao’s palm on his shoulder felt like a shock even though he saw it coming, and it didn’t move from there once he turned his head to look at him.

“Hey,” Takao said loudly, clearly enjoying himself. His cheeks were as flushed as Shun’s felt. He was still beaming as his mouth moved animatedly, his smile lighting up his face and – it felt to Shun – the rest of the park. When he finally let go of Shun’s shoulder it was to lift the bottom of his shirt to wipe his face, flashing a brief glance of his tanned, toned stomach before letting it drop back into place again where the sweat damp cotton clung to his abs just enough that Shun wasn’t sure if he wanted to tug on it to make it stop or press it down more.  He realised Takao had been saying something to him.

“Huh?”

Takao tilted his head, frowning just a little. “You okay?”

Shun blinked. And swallowed. And then nodded his head.

Takao looked like he wasn’t sure he believed him fully, and Shun wasn’t sure he did either. His heart was racing and his head was foggy. Maybe after a whole year off from any hard practice he was a little more out of shape than he’d thought he was. Maybe it was the weather. Maybe it was the college budget diet he was living on.

“Come on then,” Takao shoved at his shoulder playfully, laughing as he ran on, and Shun had to draw in a deep breath and shake himself out of his haze.

Maybe he was just that excited to be playing as part of a team again.

For a little while he seemed to struggle a bit. He tried to focus on the whole court as usual, but felt his sight – both of them – drawn to Takao, distracted from everything else and hyperaware of everything Takao did and the way that he moved. He spent all of their spare time together forcing himself further into Shun’s awareness and it seemed that that had worked a little too well. He almost missed a pass, noticing it only at the last moment because Takao had taken a side step at the same time. He’d meant to pass to someone else, but Takao was ready to receive the ball from him before it had even touched Shun’s hand, and by pure instinct on knowing that, Shun had sent it his way. Takao passed it back to the front and two points were scored almost before everyone knew where the ball had gone.

The other guys on their team yelled something celebratory. Maybe congratulations. Shun wasn’t sure. Takao kept his sharp eyes fixed on Shun, and Shun couldn’t make himself tear his gaze away either, other sounds being blocked out and blurred by how loudly Taka’s body language was screaming at him. If only Shun could understand what was going on behind the intense look in his eyes as well as he understood his muscles.

It barely lasted a second, and then someone ran by Takao, slapping him on the back and breaking the moment as he turned and laughed with them and Shun tried to refocus on everything else.

Takao evidently was not about to let himself _not_ be the centre of Shun’s attention, and worked in a few more plays where Shun found himself reacting to Takao’s movements before he had even finished making them. But Takao seemed to be reacting to Shun’s movements almost before he had even begun to make them, seeming to be reading his mind rather than his body.

Flooded with adrenaline and joy, Shun forgot that he was surrounded by players out of his league and together with Takao made another five shots, landing four of them including a three pointer. Shun could only exchange a look of awe with Takao, not even breaking the contact when one of the guys behind him raised a hand and he reached his own out to connect the high-five.

The captain, eyes wild with rage, stormed over to the two of them and gripped them by the shirts, lifting and shaking them as he yelled, “WHY DIDN’T YOU TWO SAY YOU COULD PLAY LIKE THAT?!”

Dumbstruck, Shun only stared open mouthed at him. Takao made a long ‘Uhhhhhhhh’ noise, but only ended it with a shrug.

Growling in frustration, he dropped them.

“Just,” he spat out, closing his eyes and taking in a breath, “just keep doing it.”

In the end they won the game by almost double the points, leaving Shun gaping down at his own hands in wonder. He hadn’t felt such a thrill in so long. It still burned through him like a fire and he didn’t want to stop playing yet.

Just in time to dodge out of its way, he saw the ball hurtling towards him from behind. It flew over him as he ducked down and hit the court fence. He turned to see Takao grinning from ear to ear like a delighted child, and barrelling towards him at high speed.

Shun prepared for the impact, but wasn’t prepared for it to come in the form it did. Takao wrapped his arms around Shun’s chest and shoulders, pinning his own arms to his sides in a crushing hug that knocked the breath out of him for a moment.

He felt it against his cheek and neck when Takao said, “You can do it too!” and failed to supress an unexpected shiver. Takao stepped back only to grab Shun’s face in his hands, both palms pressed to his rapidly reddening cheeks. “You can see everything!”

Feeling oddly exposed for reasons he couldn’t quite figure out, and being acutely aware of everyone else from both teams standing around and staring at them in confusion at Takao’s words, Shun wondered if he might somehow actually burst into flames and not survive to ever do this again.

His eyes darted around at them all, struggling to settle on looking directly into Takao’s intense gaze at such close range. “Um. Yes?”

Takao pulled him in again, throwing his arms around Shun’s neck in excitement. Shun wanted nothing more right then than to lift his own arms and return the hug, but he was afraid he’d hold on too hard and too long and not let go. Their hot, damp chests pressed so tightly together with the force of Takao’s hug, everything burning where Takao’s skin touched his, that it was giving him a hard time thinking about anything else at all.

His arms must have decided that they were going to hug back of their own accord, because he realised they’d lifted anyway, high enough that his fingertips landed on Takao’s waist before he could tell himself to NOT DO THAT. Luckily, Takao was already backing away and Shun was able to snatch back his hands before he’d noticed them. Hopefully.

But it seemed that everyone else there knew Takao at least well enough to not be shocked by the display, and Takao himself was unfazed by his own actions, though there were enough raised eyebrows to make Shun self-conscious enough on behalf of both of them.

It turned out he wasn’t the only one more than willing to carry on playing for longer, and the others were all enthusiastic about a rematch. However, one boy from the other team – and Shun recognised him as the one who’d said something to Takao earlier in the game only to receive a punch in the arm – suggested that since they were only playing for fun today they mix it up a bit. By literally mixing the teams. It wasn’t as popular an idea, but won by majority vote in the end.

Shun and Takao were of course separated in this, Shun remaining with the original team, Takao going over to the other side with a wink and a quick mock salute.

It wasn’t the same. Fighting Takao on the court was exciting and an adventure of its own, but having Takao by his side on the same team had been a whole other kind of exhilarating. He wanted that again. He wanted to play _with_ him again.

Still, they read each other well, though it had a different effect to when they could use it to work together, and it made the difference in their skill levels a little more obvious. But it was nothing like that first try out when Shun had felt so overshadowed by Takao that he couldn’t even keep his footing.

He remembered that look of disappointment that Takao had given him when he’d fallen backwards trying to keep up.

Going back onto the court after a short time out, Shun found himself being marked by Takao, smirking at him, and grinned back.

“I won’t lose against you this time,” he told him, sounding surer than he felt.

He wasn’t sure if Takao knew what he was talking about, but he saw his eyes glint with happy mischief. “Is that a challenge?”

Shun didn’t hesitate to nod his head, feeling something flutter inside of him at Takao’s expression.

“Then let’s make it a bet.”

That took Shun a little by surprise, but he raised an eyebrow in interest.

“Whoever loses this match has to do what the other says for a whole weekend,” he offered. “Anything they say.”

“…Anything at all?”

“Anything. At. All.”

Shun considered for a second while he had the ball, almost too aware of Takao crowding him immediately from behind so that he couldn’t pass freely. In the end Takao could read him too well for him to get passed and he only wound up giving the ball away.

“One day,” he said, betraying his lack of total confidence.

Takao hummed, giggling in amusement. “Okay, Deal. One day.”


	11. "You are so mean... and I'm okay with that."

“You know,” Takao sighed, staring at Shun miserably in the mirror, “when I said I’d keep you company at work, this is definitely not what I had in mind.”

Shun smirked up at Takao’s reflection as he finished tying his laces. He hadn’t looked at himself in the mirror today since putting on his uniform, too aware already of how ridiculous he looked. “You didn’t offer to ‘keep me company at work’. You _said_ anything at all, and I won, so I’m ordering you to come with me.”

Takao turned to give Shun the full effect of his wide-eyed look. “Well I didn’t take you for the sadistic kind.”

“At least it’s not as bad as this one,” he said, opening his arms out to show off the luminous orange ruffles.

“No, but this one is brighter,” Takao complained, folding his arms over his canary yellow chest. “And you’ll blend in with the rest of them, I’ll be the only one wearing this thing.”

Shun shook his head. “I’m the only one in this morning.”

Takao sighed again, theatrically. “Well, I guess if my suffering helps yours, I can be charitable.”

“You’re so kind,” Shun said.

“Yes I – oh _no_ , not that _._ ” His eyes widened when he saw the hat, but he didn’t stop Shun from reaching up and putting it on him.

“It’s part of the uniform.”

He glanced off to the side to look in the mirror again, and Shun had to give himself just a second to be almost mad at how cute he still managed to look, pouting miserably in the awful costume.

Shaking his head, Takao picked up his phone and swung an arm over Shun’s shoulders. He held it out in front of them both, holding it so that both of their costumes could be seen clearly on the screen, and said, “Smile!”

“Uhh, wha-”

The camera shutter sound snapped as he took the picture.

“Why are you taking a picture of it if you don’t want anyone to see you in… are you tweeting that?”

“If you’re going to look like a radioactive fruit you might as well make people think it’s part of the plan so they can’t hold it over you if you’re seen,” he shrugged.

The walk there was really the worst part, but it was improved slightly by the hilarity of it – then exponentially when Shun jokingly commanded that Takao carry him the rest of the way, and Takao insisted firmly that they now _had_ to go through with it in order to properly follow the rules of the bet.

He ran the rest of the way there with Shun clinging onto him in a piggyback, his face buried against his neck, unable to do anything but laugh and try not to fall off as he was shook around – and also try not to analyse too hard what that warm feeling was that made him never want to be put down again.

He _was_ eventually put down when they reached the doorway, not wanting to draw more attention to themselves on the inside than was already absolutely necessary.

“That was fun,” Takao wheezed, following Shun into the café, “but next time you ride me, let’s just take it slow?”

Shun was saved from having to make an articulate response to that when he was immediately dragged behind the counter to help with the orders so that the girl he was taking over for could leave.

After the short rush was over it was a fairly quiet shift as far as serving customers, but as he’d expected Takao kept him well entertained and made the afternoon go by faster than he’d like, despite having to spend it at work. He kept Takao’s drinks filled in return for his company and time, telling him not to worry about the cost and that they’d be free, while also leaving an apologetic note to his manager about the amount of drinks he was giving away, grateful that she’d let him leave an IOU and take it out of his pay later since he wasn’t unaware that this shift was probably costing him more than it was earning for him.

Takao’s constant chatter was a familiar comfort to Shun now, and although they talked a lot about school and basketball, he was more than happy to spend more time listening than actually talking himself. Even the several long minutes of winding hyperactive complaints – likely fuelled at least in part by the sugar and caffeine – about how much homework he had to do and the fact that Shun wouldn’t let him at least leave on his jacket or hide out in the back where he’d draw less attention seemed somehow nothing short of endearingly charming, leaving Shun smiling softly even as he stubbornly refused to acknowledge the little voice in his head, and the skip in his chest every time they brushed fingers as he handed over another drink or a sugar packet, that whispered to him that maybe he was in trouble here.

After locking the doors behind the last customer at the end of the night so that he could clean up, he turned back to find Takao wiping down tables for him.

“You don’t have to do that…”

“Honestly, what is the point in having a slave for the day if you’re not going to make the most of it?” Takao clicked his tongue and shook his head at him. “Besides, I get to leave faster too this way.”

Oddly touched, Shun accepted the help silently, letting Takao continue to do all the talking when they walked back to their room together. The only time he spoke before they got indoors again was when Takao asked him how he felt now in the uniform. He’d glanced down and shrugged, replying, “A little ruffled,” and after a moment for the joke to sink in, Takao had doubled over laughing.

“Izuki-san,” he gasped when he could speak again, wrapping an arm around Shun’s shoulders, “you’re so funny!”

The pun wasn’t even one of his best, but it was the most proud he thought he’d ever felt about one in a long time. He concentrated on keeping his face from showing how ridiculously pleased he was with that while they walked the rest of the way with Takao’s arm still draped over him companionably, keeping his eyes on the ground and fighting his blush down until they were back under the bright lights of their own room again.

“So, _master_ ,” Takao said with a smirk and an exaggerated bow after they’d changed into some less flamboyant clothes, “what now?”

“Now,” Shun said, throwing a heavy textbook at Takao, which he caught with a huff, “we do our homework.”

Takao twisted his face, dropping the book and himself down onto Shun’s bed. “Boring. I have loads of time to do that.”

“Well I don’t,” Shun sighed, sitting at the desk with his own homework. He’d given almost every moment of spare time he had outside of work to basketball, training, or Takao – or basketball training with Takao. “And you have to do what I say today.”

Takao stared at him incredulously for several seconds before rolling his eyes and propping himself up on his elbows.

“You’re really using this to order me to do my homework?”

“Yes.”

“You are so mean – and I’m okay with that,” he added, throwing Shun a wink, “but you’re really wasting this opportunity you know.” Seeing Shun’s confusion he went on, “You get the chance to have someone at your bidding all day and don’t even use it? What’s the point?”

“What were you hoping I’d make you do?”

“I wasn’t…” Takao reddened, “I wasn’t _hoping_ for anything, I just... I was…”

Shun turned a little more in his chair, eyebrows raised when Takao glared at him.

“I’m just saying,” he said, “anyone else wouldn’t have wasted it when they could take advantage of that.”

“So,” Shun tried not to smirk too obviously, but it was kind of hard when seeing Takao like this was a rare treat, “you’re saying you were hoping I’d take advantage of you?”

“That’s not… what… I mean I…”

“Oh, I see,” he nodded. “You wanted to win so you could take advantage of _me_ then?”

Takao stuttered over his words, seeming to struggle to speak for a moment, an even rarer treat that Shun enjoyed immensely.

He got up from his desk and moved over to the bed, sitting beside Takao calmly like what he was doing wasn’t making his heart want to burst out of his chest. He just couldn’t stop.

“So that was the idea behind making the bet?” He asked, sounding as innocent as he could manage while making an impressive endeavour not to laugh. “What were you hoping to make me do?” Takao’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. He shook his head. “What if I said we could swap right now? What would you make me do?”

“Uhhh…” Takao’s face burned as Shun leaned closer.

“Should I order you to tell me?”

“I…”

Shun’s mask slipped just for a second, his lips twitching with amusement before he could help it, and Takao snapped out of his strange paralysis, shoving him from the bed. Shun managed to save himself from falling over the side by gripping onto Takao’s shirt, laughing openly now.

“I guess that’s a point to me then?”

“I take it back; I’m not okay with it, asshole,” he said, laughing himself while trying to loose Shun’s grip and roll him to the floor, though he wouldn’t look him in the eye. They struggled for a minute or two longer until Takao won and Shun landed on the floor. After taking a few breaths, Takao got up, offering a hand to him. “Just wait until next time. I’m gonna kick your ass!”


	12. “I would rather have a cup of tea than sex.”

“Izuki! Here!”

Shun started at the yell and looked back across the gym at where the captain – standing with their coach – called for him.

And was now impatiently waving him over.

Leaving the teammate he’d been helping to stretch for practice, he quickly walked over until he was standing in front of them, wondering what on Earth he could have done to deserve the angry glower he was getting from them both.

The coach narrowed his eyes at Shun, and then turned to look at the boy next to him sceptically. “Are you _sure_?”

He nodded, folding his arms over his chest, giving Shun a stern look. “Yeah, Coach.”

The coach sighed, rubbing a hand over his face, and eventually shook his head. “Fine. If it’s worth a go. Izuki-kun, you’re with the starters from now on. Finish warming up and join your partner over there.”

“Uhh…” He turned to look at where the man had nodded his head, and saw Takao watching them with as much confusion as Shun felt.

“Hurry up,” he clapped his hands together loudly in front of Shun, making him flinch away, “you’ve got a game coming up. Get moving.”

Blinking in shock, Shun turned and marched himself away to where Takao stood staring, shrugging his shoulders when Takao was clearly about to ask what was going on. “I think I just got moved up to first string? I guess?”

Practice with the starters had seemed more tiring somehow with the coach breathing even closer down their necks during the entire thing than he did with the rest of the team. He kept a closer eye on Shun than the others, but he wasn’t sure if that was because he was reconsidering taking the risk with him or if he was expecting something more from him. If he was, Shun was afraid he was going to be disappointed.

He and Takao had already spent many excited hours exchanging information about their mutual ability, and one thing they’d both learned in that time was that after long periods of strenuous use, he was unable to use his eagle eye for a short while. His usual method, including during games, was to ‘switch it on’ only as necessary, but in order to work with Takao the way he had in the street game, he needed to maintain it during the entire game, leaving his eyes itchy and sore for several hours afterwards.

Takao on the other hand was, of course, better than him in every way at even this. His ‘sight’ skill – which he’d quickly and excitedly dubbed ‘hawk eye’ after Shun had explained his own name for his – was stronger, sharper, and had a wider range than Shun’s did. He saw more details and was able to ‘zoom in’ to focus on specific targets while still maintaining some small awareness of the rest of the area. He was also able to keep it up almost permanently, never really switching off, only narrowing his vision when he needed to be able to focus better on something. It sounded exhausting and distracting to Shun, though he still found himself envying it, but Takao had explained that it actually took a greater effort for him to try to block it out completely.

One thing for sure was that, no matter how much he wanted to, there was no way they were going to be able to keep up that kind of consistent communication during every practice with the team and together and then also through games. He had no doubt that Takao could have done it easily, but Shun just couldn’t keep up with that.

In frustration he accidentally threw the ball far too hard, shooting it right over the hoop and at the wall of the gym. He didn’t need to bother looking or using any kind of special vision skills to feel the glares of dissatisfied annoyance from the captain and coach.

He rushed to the showers after they finished cleaning up, eager to get away from the ever present glare of their coach that had followed him the entire time, and was ready and gone before anyone else. Takao caught up with him quickly, finding him rubbing his eyes.

“You still can’t use it?” He asked, bumping Shun’s shoulder as he fell into step beside him.

“I can,” Shun shrugged miserably, “but my eyes are tired.”

“Ah, you just need to practice more. You know, build stamina,” Takao told him.

Shun shrugged again. It wasn’t like Takao could know what it was like to have to try to train yourself into something like this; from what he’d told Shun about his own ability it sounded like he’d simply naturally developed that way.

“So,” Takao said, throwing an arm over Shun’s shoulders. Shun wouldn’t let himself be too thrilled with the contact – Takao clearly was just someone who got more physical the longer you knew him. He shouldn’t read more into it.

…Maybe he should be reading more into why it thrilled him so much.

“So?” He asked.

“Your eyes are tired, right?” Takao asked. Shun didn’t respond, taking the question for rhetorical since they’d just established that yes, his eyes were tired. Takao took the hint quickly. “You’ve tried resting them and it obviously hasn’t done that much good –”

“If you’re trying to make me feel better, this really isn’t working.”

“So I’m just thinking,” he went on, ignoring that comment, “maybe instead of resting you just need to unwind a bit? Relax, you know?”

“Well I thought that’s what resting was,” Shun said flatly.

“No, no. I mean have fun!”

“Fun is what caused this in the first place.”

“Izuki-kun,” Takao tightened his grip a little, giving Shun a small shake, “there are things in the world that are fun other than basketball and homework.”

“I don’t do my homework for fun.”

“Okay, one;” he held up a finger, “I don’t believe you. You absolutely _do_ do your homework for fun. There’s no other explanation for you doing it all on time out of choice because, honestly, who does that.”

“Two?” Shun asked, opting to save that argument for another time.

“I have a friend who’s having a… sort of get together, and it’s kind of an exclusive invite only thing, but I asked if I could bring a friend.”

“I don’t want to go to a party,” Shun interrupted him, shaking his head. “I don’t feel like being the odd one out hanging around all the ‘popular crowd’ left in a corner somewhere while you go off –”

“It won’t be that kind of party!”

“Will there be cheerleaders?”

Takao snorted. “Oh yeah, definitely.”

Shun gave him a look that make Takao sigh loudly. “Look, I promise it won’t be like that. There won’t even be many there. Probably.” He added that last part quietly, and then turned to Shun with the biggest puppy-dog eyed look he’d ever seen from a grown boy in his life, saying, “ _Pleaaaasseee_?”

He held out for maybe four seconds, and Takao was able to notice the exact second he gave in, because he punched the air in victory before Shun even began to say, “Okay, _fine_.”

“Great!” He said, moving his arm from around Shun’s shoulders so that he could clap his hands together, turning around to walk backwards.

 _Show off_ , Shun thought, fighting down a smile.

“But we need to find you something suitable to wear,” Takao told him. Shun was mid eye-roll when he asked, “Do you have any pyjamas?”

“Do I… what? What kind of party is this?”

Takao grinned wider, turning around to run away. “Race you back to the room!”

“Wait, Takao, what kind of party?”

*

Somehow Shun felt like he should have seen something like this coming, but also knew he never would have been able to, no matter how many guesses he might have been given. There were definitely cheerleaders at this party. In fact, excluding Takao and himself, there were _only_ cheerleaders at this party. Probably not even the whole squad, he thought. And they were all sat around Shun on the floor, in mismatched pyjamas and most without even their hair and makeup done, talking to Shun like he was a friend they’d known all along even when he remembered less than half of their names.

Shun, sat on the bedroom floor of the tiny blonde captain in a pair of pyjama pants he’d borrowed from Takao and an old t-shirt, felt like he was having some kind of out of body experience. He hadn’t been to a slumber party since he was maybe six years old, and that one was only because he’d cried until his sister had taken him with her.

Takao had explained, in a fashion, why he’d been invited to this thing in the first place. Something about them all trying to cheer someone else up. Shun didn’t even know who. He didn’t know any of them really. There was no reason for him to be there at all except that Takao had decided he wouldn’t go without him.

A few of them had been a little apprehensive about Shun joining them at first, but Takao’s approval must have meant something to them, because at only a few words from him they’d accepted it and warmed up to him.

His exact words, in fact, were burned into Shun’s brain and repeating somewhere in the background of his mind on an endless loop no matter what else was going on around him; “No way! Don’t worry – he’s cool, he’s my best friend.” He gave Shun a playful but kind of rough nudge further into the room. “I couldn’t come without him.”

And although he’d then proceeded to not even so much as look directly at Shun for at least a full twenty minutes after that, Shun was fairly convinced that his heartrate still hadn’t entirely returned to normal yet by the time Takao came to sit next to him, pressing closer when the others all tried to sit together in a circle on the floor too.

He carried on talking to his friend while Shun burned against him.

_‘He’s cool.’_

Someone was asking him something. He nodded his head, hoping that was the right answer.

She frowned at him. “I said what kind?”

“Uh, any?” He croaked out.

Takao laughed at him. It was hard to figure out if he should be bothered by that or not when it was such a nice sound.

_‘He’s my best friend.’_

But when she turned to him to ask “And you?” he asked for Shun’s favourite pizza (which explained what she’d been asking him) instead of his own. He couldn’t help giving Takao a small smile in thanks, but was confused when it was received with widening eyes and a small choked noise before Takao looked away, running a hand through his hair so that his face was blocked from Shun’s view. He realised that maybe it wasn’t for his sake after all.

_‘Couldn’t come without him.’_

Why was he struggling so hard not to do something like sigh and throw himself backwards to lie on the floor? Or to kick his legs about in the air while screaming? What was _wrong_ with him lately?

Obviously Takao’s theatrics were rubbing off on him, but he made himself control the urge to release whatever emotion it was fighting to be let out of him.

There was some debate over what they wanted to do while they waited for the food to arrive. Most of them wanted to watch a movie but agreed that they’d wait until after they had the food so that they wouldn’t be interrupted.

There was only one protestor when someone placed a bottle in between them all, complaining that weren’t they were a little too old to be playing those kinds of games? But it was shot down with, “Never! Besides, what’s a sleepover without a game of truth or dare?”

Shun, feeling apprehensive about it, wanted to excuse himself from the game, but didn’t dare to when no one else did. He needn’t have worried though; when they began and were giving dares like “text your mom and tell her you miss her” or “snapchat a silly face to the last person you received a message from with no explanation” he very quickly relaxed, laughing along with them at their own silliness. When the bottle landed on Shun he chose dare and was told to show an embarrassing photo of himself, only to have to be sorry to disappoint them when he had to admit that he had none.

‘Fortunately’ Takao was there to offer his assistance, pulling up several pictures of Shun on his phone. There were a lot of images on his phone to skip over – and a lot of them selfies or photos of a woman and a young girl that Shun assumed were his mother and sister – to find the ones he was looking for.

Most of them Shun knew about since Takao had apparently made it his mission to document Shun’s awful work wardrobe, including the selfie he’d taken of both of them together, but a couple of them he hadn’t seen before. There was one of him with food down his shirt, having clearly spilled it on himself some time that he didn’t remember, and one of him on the gym floor after falling over – that one he _did_ remember – but the last one didn’t seem as funny as the others. He’d fallen asleep at his desk doing homework one night, and Takao had apparently found it amusing enough to take a photo. His friend apparently found it funny too, stifling her giggles only barely when Takao closed it quickly, saying that that was all he had before Shun could inspect it.

_‘My best friend.’_

“Are you sure that’s all you have?” She asked, smirking at him.

“I’m sure,” Takao rolled his eyes, interrupting her when she opened her mouth again to loudly tell Shun that he needed to spin the bottle.

The girl it landed on stared at him, waiting for her dare, but he couldn’t think of a single thing to say and looked around at Takao for help.

“Eat that questionable looking biscuit Takao-kun found in his pocket earlier,” one of them suggested.

Both she and Takao wrinkled their noses at the idea, and she asked, “What’s the forfeit?”

Everyone looked around at each other for a moment until one of them pulled another bottle out of her bag and they all looked to their captain.

“Well,” she sighed, looking at the bottle, “we don’t have practice tomorrow.”

Shun wanted to argue that some of them did have practice tomorrow, but he supposed he could just choose not to forfeit anything and not have to take any drinks.

Takao didn’t appear to have the same worry; when the bottle landed on him and he chose ‘truth’ she had pretend whispered “Tell us who you have a crush on,” and without pausing for a moment to think Takao had taken the bottle, flipping her off without sparing her or anyone else a glance as he drank.

Something unpleasant and ugly twisted in Shun at the thought that whoever it was, she was probably sat in that room with them. A feeling that had become more familiar to him the closer he grew to Takao.

_‘Couldn’t come without him.’_

He imagined Takao dating a girl and everything going back to the way things were before, back in the beginning when they didn’t know each other so well. Takao would be going out and leaving Shun alone and friendless again, only this time it would sting more because of the loss, and it wouldn’t be for a party or sport, but just for one person. Because that one person would then surely be the most important one to him.

For the first time, staring dazedly at the spinning bottle in the centre of the group as the truth dawned on him, he recognised and acknowledged what that feeling was.

_‘My best friend.’_

So he wasn’t really jealous of Takao for having all those friends at all; he was jealous of everyone else for having time with Takao.

That shouldn’t be such a shock, right? Takao was his best friend. Takao had called _Shun_ his best friend. They spent all their time together, lived together, trained together, had the same passion for basketball, shared something in common that he’d never had with anyone else.

He didn’t want to share that – didn’t feel that he _could_ share Takao like that. Surely someone feeling a little selfish with a friendship that significant to them was just natural, right? Surely, the anger he suddenly felt at the thought of Takao dating a girl was just a normal reaction to the worry that he might lose his newly gained best friend.

The bottle landed on him again and Shun, still too busy reeling in his new revelation to deal with the game right now, simply picked up the alcohol and drank, swallowing a larger mouthful than he realised he should have and earning him a laugh from the rest of them when he twisted his face suddenly, tears stinging his eyes when it burn as it went down and made him cough. But one turn later and it was pointing back at him again.

Definitely sure he couldn’t deal with taking another drink of whatever that was that was still making his mouth tingle, he almost chose truth, but the thought of being asked the same kinds of questions as they were asking Takao made his insides writhe nervously. Forcing himself to appear calm, he shrugged and said. “Dare.”

He looked around at them all using his eagle eye while the girl considered the dare, sure he wasn’t reading Takao’s reaction incorrectly and trying to figure out which one of them it was, despite desperately not wanting to know. They were all kind of pretty he supposed, but there was no way to figure out from that who he had his eyes on.

Takao nudged him lightly with his elbow, quietly telling him, “If they’re still hurting, stop using it.”

“How–?”

“Hold hands with Takao,” they both shut up instantly and looked up at her, but although it wasn’t his dare, it was Takao she aimed her fake innocent grin at as though she didn’t even realise that Shun was definitely the one she was tormenting here.

The others seemed to find the dare extremely funny.

“Wow. That is just. Too wild. Tone it down,” one of them said, in a voice so flat and sarcastic that it had a few of them were unable to say anything for several moments through laughing.

“This third grader get-together is turning into a real party now,” another said, rolling her eyes.

She grinned around at them. “Maybe I should change it to something else?”

“Hell no, you can’t take it back once you’ve made the dare!” Takao jumped in quickly, putting out his hand palm up in front of Shun. “Come on, put it here before they try to give you something worse.”

Shun stared down at it, but couldn’t make his hand move for several long seconds while he tried to come up with a way to get out of it. Someone had handed him the bottle when he didn’t move, but he was sure that trying to get out of it would only make it more obvious that for some reason it just made him so tense. He put his palm in Takao’s, letting him link their fingers together. He hoped that at least no one else saw his fingers shaking as he did, even if he knew there was no way Takao didn’t feel it.

_‘He’s cool.’_

In an attempt to steady himself he took another drink anyway before Takao took the bottle from him.

Shun felt the furthest thing from cool when it came to Takao. Especially in this moment with his hand sweating and his fingers trembling, half wanting to snatch his hand back while at the same time never wanting to let go. Laughter from the room washed over him as they moved on to more ‘interesting’ dares with the others, but all he really heard was Takao’s voice. The urge to stare at his smile was warring with his inability to actually look directly at it without feeling like he was going to just burn up or fall apart.

Takao’s answer to someone’s far too innocently voiced “Who’s the prettiest here?” was “I am, obviously,” – also to turn slightly pinker in the cheeks, give her a shove in her giggling face, and demand she “Cut it out!” – and Shun couldn’t make himself disagree with him at all, which only made the burning inside of him get a lot worse very quickly.

He took another drink, so stunned by this realisation that he barely felt it this time.

Of course he already knew that Takao was good looking, he’d found himself irrationally and inexplicably angry over it many times before since meeting him, but he’d never really paused to recognise the fact that he _liked_ that. Which really only made how annoying it was even more confusing.

It gave him a headache. Everything about Takao was a health hazard to him.

They didn’t cut it out, and several more drinks and spins later – after questions or dares Shun didn’t hear because he was too busy staring dazedly at Takao in wonder over his sudden conscious recognition of the fact that Takao was, in fact, the prettiest person in the room, and that he was still holding his hand – the bottle pointed in Takao’s direction again.

He heaved a heavy sigh, rolled his eyes, looking almost bored with their game now, and again said, “Truth.”

“Would you sleep with the last person who sent you a text?” The girl asked. The small blonde who was Takao’s friend almost fell backwards laughing.

Shun knew that that question shouldn’t embarrass him more than it embarrassed Takao, but apparently it did. Thankfully though, Takao was too busy feigning offence to notice.

“How dare you,” he said, putting his free hand over his heart. “I would rather have a cup of tea than sex.”

The blonde let out a ‘ _pffff_ ’ before laughing loudly again and saying, “At least you’ve _had_ a cup of tea before,” right before she received another shove to the face and Takao’s red-faced declaration that he was leaving.

They didn’t leave though, as a moment later another girl entered the room with a stack of pizzas, and they all scrambled up off the floor to get to the food and to find a comfortable spot to watch the movie. Shun tried not to mourn the loss of Takao’s hand in his, but after getting food and settling himself into a seat on the floor against a beanbag that he shared with Takao, without thinking at all he simply slipped his hand back into Takao’s.

He froze, staring ahead and not daring to look around at him.

He hadn’t meant to do it. It had just happened, and by the time he’d realised what he was doing he was already grasping Takao’s hand and it was too late to stop and pretend that that wasn’t what he was trying to do.

Using his eagle eye he watched Takao for a reaction, but Takao seemed to also simply be staring forwards. It took him another long moment to somehow understand; Takao was watching him too. He flushed and turned his head away from Takao, but immediately regretted it, knowing that that wouldn’t stop him seeing it at all.

After this reaction, Takao turned to stare at him wide-eyed, and Shun had to take a breath to steady himself. Relying on a lifetime of training his ability to give a punchline with a straight face, he turned that blank, serious expression on Takao.

Several seconds passed. Someone turned out the lights. They ignored the television as the title menu and then the movie itself played loudly, making the light flicker over their faces, and instead continued looking at each other.

When he raised a questioning eyebrow, Takao was the first to look away, and Shun, releasing a slow shaky breath, considered that a victory. Especially since Takao hadn’t pulled away.

Still, Shun watched only Takao, even with his eyes fixed on the small screen in front of them. Every word from the movie or the girls was drowned out by the thudding of his own pulse and the fuzziness that had slowly taken over his mind through the night.

He hadn’t had a lot of alcohol in his life, but he decided then that he did not like it very much. Even though he hadn’t drank much of it, it made him sleepy and his eagle vision wasn’t as clear, and all he could concentrate on at all was Takao; his face, the warmth of his hand in Shun’s, the memory of his voice.

_‘He’s my best friend.’_

And there was that weird overwhelming feeling trying to burst out of him again.

At some point they’d all started to fall asleep, including Takao. Someone eventually threw thin blankets over anyone uncovered and turned off the TV, leaving Shun lying awake in the quiet darkness and trying not to wonder too hard how his life had lead him to this situation.

Their fingers weren’t clasped tightly anymore, but they still held hands, their palms resting together gently on the floor between them. Shun kept telling himself to just take back his hand so he could get more comfortable, but he couldn’t make himself do it.

Instead he just did the best he could with what he had and turned onto his side facing Takao. The beanbag rustled loudly under him with every small movement, but he didn’t worry about waking Takao; he always slept deeply and, as Shun expected, he didn’t stir at all.

As usual his eyes adjusted quickly to the dark, though the room seemed to tilt and turn weirdly, and he wondered briefly if maybe tomorrow he should ask Takao if his night vision was better than his before dismissing that as a silly question. Of course it was better than his. Everything about Takao’s hawk eye ability was better than Shun’s. As jealous as he was about Takao’s natural talent, the main thing bugging him about it now was why someone as good at basketball as Takao would be so eager to play with someone as obviously out of practice as Shun. Even if he’d improved and caught up a lot recently, it would still take him a lot more to get on that level.

Even in the dark, looking at Takao made his heart beat harder and gave him that odd flutter in his stomach, and he was sleepy (and inebriated) enough now to figure he could just worry about all that another time. For now, it was nice just lying there next to him, even if the floor was a little uncomfortable and his head was already beginning to hurt. He’d never felt so connected or had someone so special to him this way before.

Unable to help himself and currently lacking whatever it was that usually gave him his better judgement, Shun whispered so that no one else would hear it, “You’re my best friend too.”

He smiled to himself, giddy and barely holding back a burst of laughter. Takao still didn’t wake at all, which somehow seemed funny enough to Shun that this time he did laugh.

With enough presence of mind to remember that they were in a room full of other sleeping people, he clamped his mouth shut and let his head fall onto Takao’s shoulder, wishing the room would cease its spinning and hoping that he wouldn’t wake the next morning feeling ill.


	13. "I'm not cheap, but I am on special this week."

Focusing in practice with the team when he felt distracted was a challenge.

Focusing the constant use of his eagle eye in private practice with the light low and his distraction somehow being handsier than usual was practically impossible.

It was bad enough that during practice itself Takao’s body almost seemed glued to his, but also every now and then Takao would stop their practice to comment on Shun’s movements, or to make sure that his eyes weren’t looking too dry or red, and the entire time he did this he’d be gently brushing the hair from Shun’s eyes or leaving his hands on him for longer than necessary as he tried to help him fix his posture. He didn’t even appear to notice himself doing it at all. Shun hated it. And he didn’t want it to stop.

“Izuki-san, are you okay?” Takao asked after stopping Shun easily with one hand, knocking the ball from his grip without any effort at all as he made a barely even half-hearted attempt at taking a shot at the net. When Shun picked up the ball again Takao held it over his hands, making Shun freeze. “You seem really out of it today?”

Shun stared down at the hands resting gently on his. His chest seemed to be vibrating from the touch. “I’m fine.”

Takao ducked his head to catch Shun’s eye and smiled one of those rare soft smiles that he saved for when they were alone – which was an unhelpful reminder of his extremely recent realisation that it was probably not usual for someone to have memorised and categorised every one of a friend’s smiles.

“Are you sure?” Takao’s thumb brushed absently over the back of Shun’s hand and Shun fought the urge to scream as loud as he could and punch Takao in his stupid face.

_I think I’m having some kind of breakdown._

“Yeah,” he shrugged, “totally fine.”

He needed time alone to work through the painful mess in his head that just got more tangled every time he was around Takao, but no matter how firmly he told himself when they were apart during classes that he was going to spend some of his free time without him so he could figure it out, as soon as Takao was there he completely abandoned that plan and ditched the will to say no.

He couldn’t even take a step away right now. Or pull his hands back away from Takao’s. Or at least stop staring at his arms. Anything would have been better than just standing there being wilfully lost in his presence while they listened to the gentle patter of the rain hitting the windows.

Shun wasn’t sure how much longer he could stubbornly force himself to pretend to be completely ignorant of the real reason Takao was like a human magnet to him when he could feel the weight of it crushing him almost constantly whether they were around each other or not.

“Okay, great,” Takao accepted that, beaming at him in irritating obliviousness before skipping back a few steps. “Let’s do that again then.”

Shun sighed quietly. It wasn’t like he _wanted_ Takao to notice, but at the same time it was just killing him a little bit that he didn’t.

They’d barely begun again when Takao suddenly jolted and stopped, letting Shun make a sloppy shot that he could have stopped easily. At first Shun thought he’d tripped, but when he turned to look he saw that Takao had just frozen with a look of dread on his face. The ball bounced away quietly, the sound of it drowned out by a rumble of thunder.

“Uh…” Shun began to ask if he was okay, but Takao laughed it off with a terribly fake chuckle.

“We should stop now,” he said quickly. “It’s late.”

Shun blinked at him.

“I’m tired.”

“You never want to go back this early,” he glanced at his watch. It _was_ getting late, but they often stayed much later than this. Shun would usually have had to drag Takao from the gym himself if he wanted to sleep at what _he_ deemed a reasonable time.

“I suddenly don’t feel well.”

Shun managed to stop himself short of pouting at least. He didn’t want to stop yet. “You were fine a–”

“I just want to leave.”

 “…Okay,” he frowned, concerned now. “Do you need to see the nurse?”

Takao opened his mouth to reply but a brief flash of lightning seemed to take him by surprise and he jolted, shaking his head quickly. They rushed to clean up and get back, Takao becoming more and more distressed as the thunderstorm drew closer. He kept his head down as they hurried back through the rain that was steadily growing heavier and lashing harshly in their faces with the wind.

They were both shivering by the time they got to their room, and Shun was more than happy to climb into bed and warm up once he’d dried off, but when he looked over at the lump of bed that was Takao cocooned in his blankets he saw that he was still shivering. He hadn’t even turned out the light.

“Are you… um,” he told himself to shut up, that Takao probably wouldn’t want to talk about it, but he couldn’t stop himself, “are you cold?”

“I’m fine,” came the muffled squeaking reply.

He was quiet for a few minutes, just watching the place where Takao hid and listening to the wind and rain, but there was another crash from the sky and the ball of blanket tightened.

“You’re safe in here,” he said. “And it’s not a very big storm so it’ll probably be over by morning.”

Takao’s head peeked out from under the blanket, red faced and glaring. “I know that!”

“Oh. Sorry. I just thought–”

“I know it’s dumb,” he mumbled into the blanket where he’d half pulled it around his face again. “I know it’s – and it’s not even for any reason. I just… don’t like it.”

Takao struggled with himself for a few seconds longer before giving up his explanation and disappearing into the blanket again.

Shun looked away and told himself again to just drop it. To not say what he was thinking. To leave it alone and go to sleep. That he’d only end up humiliating or upsetting himself no matter which way this worked out.

“My little sister used to be afraid of thunderstorms too,” he said, mentally throwing his arms up in exasperation at himself.

A sound that could have been a snort came from under the covers. “If you’re gonna call me something then just say it.”

Shun wet his lips, staring up at the ceiling while he willed himself in vain to stop, “She used to climb into my bed whenever there was a storm at night.”

He paused for a moment, trying to figure out what he was going to say next. So that he could at least try to tell himself not to.

Takao’s head poked back out from under the blanket, glare back in full force.

“She said it helped her to fall asleep,” he went on when Takao said nothing. “Um. I guess it made her feel safe?” He didn’t think it would help to mention that she’d gotten over this fear and stopped needing comfort during storms before she’d finished second grade, so he left that part out.

There was another long stretch of silence from Takao until, “Are you… You’re not making fun of me? Are you inviting me into your bed?”

“No!” It was an automatic response that left him before he’d had a chance to think. He didn’t really do any more thinking before letting his mouth carry on again anyway. “I don’t know… Maybe?”

Takao pushed the blanket off further to stare at him, flinching when there was another flash of lightning quickly followed by loud thunder.

“Well… I mean– would it make you feel better?”

Barking a short humourless laugh he asked, “You want to protect me from the storm?”

“Yeah? I guess?” Shun could only shrug and answer honestly at this point. Takao usually was so bright and cheerful that it was difficult to see him this way, and Shun’s need to make that go away as best he could for him was talking very loudly over his own sense of self preservation.

“So you can laugh at me?”

“I’m not laughing.”

Takao was quiet for a while until, in a sceptical voice, he asked, “You’re really just gonna ask me to climb in there and spend the night with you?”

“Well you don’t _have_ to,” Shun felt himself burning again, his embarrassment finally catching up with him. He knew he should have just kept his mouth shut. “I thought it might help.”

When he looked back at Takao he’d thrown off the blankets completely and was grinning at him with that glint in his eyes again.

“Hey, I’m not that easy you know,” he said, leaving Shun blinking at him in confusion. “You think you can get me with your false promises of safety. Don’t think I don’t know you just want to get me in your bed. I’m not that cheap you know.”

The worst part of it was that Shun _knew_ it was just their stupid game – just another point Takao wanted to add onto his own score in a competition that had apparently gone from simply ‘who has the best lines’ to ‘who can affectively embarrass the other most’ – and still he was floundering to make an excuse and deny it.

Takao looked delightedly ready to gloat about his victory, or possibly to carry on terrorising Shun by making him disgrace himself further, but before he could do any more a loud echoing rumble accompanied a series of flashes that lit up the room as the bulb hanging above them flickered and went out.

He felt the impact on his bed and the covers lifting before he understood what was going on, but immediately backed himself to the edge of the bed in panic to give Takao more room when he realised.

“Well, if you’re going to make fun of me you might as well go ahead and get it out of your system now so we can sleep.”

After giving himself a few moments to calm the sudden galloping in his chest Shun was able to summon enough of a teasing voice to ask, “Not that cheap?”

“…I’m on special this week.”

Shun tried not to laugh, but it escaped him. Takao laughed with him at least, but kept his back to Shun and his head under the cover.

With nothing left to say Shun knew he should just sleep, but he was buzzing all over. He either hated it or loved it and couldn’t even tell which, but he felt it so much that it made his chest ache.

He didn’t bother trying to lie to himself or come up with excuses about _why_. He just stared at Takao’s back, holding back a heavy sigh that he was afraid would turn into a sob if it got out.

Another long rumble from the sky, and Takao flinched again.

The beds weren’t wide, but they’d left as much space between them as they could manage. Takao was the most physically affectionate person he’d ever met outside of his own family, he hadn’t come any closer than where he’d landed when he’d jumped into the bed and that should have been enough to tell Shun to stay on his side, but Takao’s shivering was too much for him to ignore.

Hoping it would be at least a small comfort, and not totally unwelcome, he gingerly reached out, stopping himself every inch or so closer he got as he changed his mind over and over again. Eventually his fingertips touched Takao’s shoulder. His hand froze when Takao did, unable to move any more until he felt Takao relax again and he could let himself rest his palm down, feeling the tremors gradually fade away from the muscles under it as Takao began to fall asleep despite the noise from outside.

Shun buried his face into his pillow, determined not to scream though he was fully aware that he was only encouraging himself to spiral deeper into this ridiculous crisis.


	14. "You know what material this is? Boyfriend material."

Shun woke especially early in the morning to find that Takao was as ‘hands-on’ in his sleep as he was when he was awake and had turned over and moved closer in his sleep to plaster himself along Shun’s side.

He lay still on his back and willed his heartrate and breathing to calm down again after the sudden jolt of alarm. One arm had gone numb where Takao had managed to end up lying on it, and his feet were cold because – Shun assumed – when Takao had thrown one leg over Shun’s sometime through the night, he’d managed to kick the covers away so that the bottom half of it was hanging over the side of the bed on the floor, but even considering his discomfort Shun didn’t know how long he spent just lying there staring at the ceiling and taking the occasional look down at Takao’s face squashed against his shoulder whenever he could bear to see it, too afraid to move yet in case he woke him.

By the lack of rain or thunder sounds from outside he figured the storm had stopped at some point through the night. He couldn’t see his watch with his arm trapped under Takao, his phone was out of reach, and neither of them had bothered to put out a clock anywhere in their room, but he judged by the pale light beginning to poke weakly through the cheap curtains that it was unnecessarily early for him to be awake, and absolutely laughable to image Takao might get up of his own accord any time soon unless there was a basketball game or early practice.

Eventually he had to go to the bathroom though and he took extra care to delicately work his way out from underneath the tangle of Takao’s clinging limbs. He should have realised that Takao wouldn’t stir at all – in fact he thought he probably could have kicked him from the bed straight onto the floor and still not got much more of a reaction from him – but the whole process of escaping his hug was drawn out with great caution for fear of having to face any awkwardness.

Takao remained deeply asleep after Shun had successfully extracted himself from the bed, moving only for a second or two to half wrap himself around the bedding now that his living pillow had left him, but his eyes never even fluttered and he was dead to the world again in an instant.

His t-shirt had rode up a little in his wriggling, just enough to at least partly show off the muscles and lightly tanned skin of his back, moving slowly with each breath. Shun’s eyes couldn’t seem to decide whether they were more drawn there or to Takao’s face where his hair was falling slightly into his eyes. He looked so peaceful that it was a hard sight to walk away from. Peaceful and soft in a way that somehow made his bed look more inviting than usual and made him regret escaping from it.

Shun watched him for a moment longer, still breathing a little harder than he felt he probably should be after having just woke up, and contemplating absently about how nice it would have been to stay in bed just a little while longer under the warm and comforting weight of Takao sleeping against him… before realising that he was just standing there watching his friend sleep and _daydreaming about it_ , and told himself firmly to pull himself together and go take a shower already instead of acting like some kind of creep.

Focusing was at least a little easier in class without Takao physically present to distract him, but somehow he still managed to steal Shun’s attention whenever he let his guard slip and he would forget about taking notes to lose several minutes astray in his imagination where both their classes were over and he was already out with Takao for lunch, only to snap back out of it eventually and realise he had no idea what had just been said in class. At the end of class he had to ask the girl sat next to him if he could borrow her notes to copy. She gave him a quizzical look and looked down at the page in front of him that had mostly half-finished sentences and a doodle in the corner before sliding them over to him.

When the rest of his morning classes finally did come to an end he hurried to meet Takao, even though there was really no point rushing himself when he knew he would still have to wait outside of the room for some time for his class to finish.

He passed the time on his phone and didn’t notice the girl who had been slowly inching her way closer until she was right behind him, reaching a hand up to his shoulder where it hovered uncertainly for several long seconds without moving close enough to touch. When it seemed like she wouldn’t work up the nerve to get his attention he sighed and turned to look at her, making her jump slightly. She already seemed nervous; biting her lips together and shaking a little where her hand stayed suspended in mid-air.

“Are you okay?” He asked, but his eyes were fixed on the envelope clutched in her other hand that was giving him an odd sense of dread.

“Um, I –” she squeaked, but then coughed and stood herself up a little straighter and held the envelope out to him in both hands before trying again. “I was wondering… I mean, I was _hoping_ …”

Shun kept his face inexpressive. He hated this. He’d been confessed to in high school enough times to know that he could avoid having to upset girls by rejecting them because as soon as he dialled up the puns they were practically guaranteed to get irritated enough to run off before it was a problem. There was nothing wrong with the girls, it’s just that there never seemed to be any of them that he could actually date without feeling an unpleasant discomfort at the thought. They were just never right for him. Thankfully by the end of his second year there didn’t seem to be any left who were willing to bother trying so it had been a while since he’d had to deal with it, but college was a whole new circle of people.

He hoped she wasn’t as timid as she seemed right now. He couldn’t cope with the guilt of trying to chase off shy girls who were genuinely willing to put up with puns so annoying that even his friends on the basketball team wouldn’t stick around for it and he’d have to reject them as gently as he could. It couldn’t really get much worse than that.

“I know it’s kind of immature of me to ask this instead of doing it myself,” she said, finding her nerve to at least smile as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “You’re Takao-kun’s friend right? I’ve seen you together a lot. I tried a few times to give this to him myself but… um,” she blushed, looking down at the envelope again while Shun felt his head buzzing loudly as he tried desperately to remember if he’d ever seen her on the cheerleading squad. Somehow, this definitely felt worse. “It’s hard to get him on his own. Would you give this to him for me?”

“Yeah, okay,” he shrugged, furious at himself that his own hand would shake so much when he held it out to accept the letter.

Red-faced, she thanked him quickly and hurried off just as Shun noticed Takao standing in the doorway of the classroom, watching them curiously with an odd grin on his face that Shun found he couldn’t quite read as well as he normally could.

He didn’t move from the doorway, instead waiting with his weird smile rigidly in place for Shun to walk to him and dragging out a slow, “ _Sooo_?”

There was a lump in Shun’s throat that didn’t seem to want him to answer.

“Come on,” Takao sighed loudly and shoved at Shun’s arm, a little rougher than he usually maybe would, and Shun wondered if somehow Takao could read him so well already that he could already tell that he didn’t want to do this. “What does it say?”

“I don’t know,” he said, staring down at the envelope in his hands.

Before he could finish forcing his limbs to cooperate and just hand the damn thing over already, Takao asked, “Well, are you going to read it right now?” and he stopped.

“Why would I read it?”

Takao’s brow furrowed. He laughed, but it didn’t sound amused at all. “What do you mean? You didn’t give her a reply already, did you? Without even opening it?”

Shun swallowed, holding his expression even as he felt some quiet voice inside of himself screaming at him not to do it, and shook his head. “No, I didn’t give her a reply.”

Takao, who was a lot less capable of masking his own emotions, looked pretty unhappy with that answer. Shun wasn’t lying _exactly_ , but he wondered if Takao was able to tell that he was wasn’t being honest either. The guilt that came with being deceitful to Takao was infinitely worse than any time he’d ever had to reject a girl, but he’d said it now, and his tongue didn’t seem to want to set that right because he heard himself saying, “I’ll read it later.”

“Oh,” Takao’s smile was forced, but even if he was angry about it he clearly wasn’t going to call Shun out on his lies. It only made him feel worse. And worse still when he was unusually quiet throughout their walk to the cafeteria, though he didn’t dare try to get him out of it. He seemed to have perked up again by the time they sat down though, as least enough to start questioning Shun again.

“Who was she?” He asked. “Do you know her? Is she in any of your classes?”

Shun just shook his head, able to at least rule out her being someone Takao had noticed and therefore not the girl the others had been teasing him about at the sleepover.

“What did she say?”

“Not much…”

“Do you like her? She was cute, right?”

“Uh… I guess?”

“Is she your type? What kind of girls do you usually like?”

Shun’s brain drew a total blank on him, leaving him only able to shrug. Fortunately – or not – he didn’t have time to think about that for too long because Takao’s questions carried on throughout lunch. Every time he appeared to be finished he would go quiet for a few moments and then turn on Shun again for another round.

“Do you think she was too quiet? She looked quiet. And short. That’s fine I guess, for some people, but you just didn’t look right together. Not that I’m trying to put you off, but I’m just saying. Have you ever talked to her before? Where did you first meet her?”

“No, I – just right there… I think…”

“You must have met her somewhere,” he said. “Why would she confess to someone she didn’t know at all? That _is_ what she was doing, right?”

“Um.”

Takao laughed cheerlessly before letting his head drop back, rolling his eyes, and throwing his arms out aimlessly. “Of course she was. Look at you. I’m amazed you’ve made it this far.”

“What do you m–”

“I’m actually surprised she’s the one who got there first. How are you so popular anyway? You never even talk to any of them.”

“I’m not popular? No one even knows me here?” He was momentarily distracted from the squirming guilt in his gut by the crazy question. Takao was by far more popular than he ever would be.

“’Course they do,” he snorted. “You’re handsome and smart and funny and cool,” Shun felt the guilt come flooding back, but mixed with a hot flush of pleasure that partly made him feel worse but mostly made him want to cover his face and scream into his hands. “You know what material this is?” Takao hooked a finger into the collar of Shun’s t-shirt and gently tugged his face closer to him to flash Shun the most intense smouldering smirk he’d ever given him. “Boyfriend material.” Shun knocked Takao’s hand away with his arm and shook himself free to look the other way, hiding his face while Takao only laughed, not even appearing to be aware of how much worse these things affected Shun now. The sickening guilt was taking over him again, and not just over the girl. “Half the girls I know here have already asked me to ask you – but I mean I only said no because I figured you don’t really have the time for all that what with basketball and…”

Shun couldn’t listen any more, he let it wash over him, picking at his food without really eating while catching only parts of Takao’s babbling as he carried on almost nonstop. Shun just felt too awful to deal with it.

“…and think of the team! Where would you find the time to practice for…”

It continued as they walked from the cafeteria to Takao’s next class.

“…because I seriously think with that and all that homework you do on top of it you won’t even have a chance to…”

Takao was probably making at least _some_ relevant comments, but Shun was so mad at himself with it all now that he couldn’t even listen. He just wanted to be alone. Of course as soon as Takao stopped talking for long enough to notice that the class had started without him he had to run inside and leave Shun alone out in the far too quiet corridor, he was already wishing that Takao was back out there with him again.

He hung around for a little while before dragging himself home, feeling weighted down the entire way. When he got there, he didn’t bother with homework or anything else, he just flopped down onto his bed and took out the envelope from his pocket.

Several times he almost opened it, fingers picking at the folds, but mostly he just stared at it.

When Takao came back from class it seemed like he’d thought of a lot more in that time that he wanted to say because he immediately threw himself back into ranting and chucking questions out the moment he was through the door, looking more irritated now than he had before, almost annoyed by it even.

Shun didn’t know for sure if Takao had realised the truth, but felt safe now to take a guess that no, he hadn’t. And if he didn’t realise that Shun was lying, then he didn’t like it for some other reason. At first he’d wondered if it was jealousy, but Takao didn’t know the girl and didn’t seem interested in her himself.

Hardly even daring to acknowledge it, he hurriedly shushed the quiet hope that it was something else; that it was because – just as Shun had felt before – Takao didn’t want to lose his friend to someone else.

Knowing how that felt, there was a twist of guilt. There was also satisfaction, which then also added to guilt. He knew he shouldn’t feel glad at the thought that Takao would be that unhappy if Shun started dating a girl, but he couldn’t stop the feeling from creeping up on him. He deserved to feel all that guilt.

Feeling sick because of it all, he stood up quickly before he could talk himself out of it and held out the letter in front of Takao’s face.

“– and you really don’t want to just go– what? Why are you…” he held out his hands before he understood what was going on and blinked down as Shun put the letter into them and stepped away to sit back down on his bed.

“I’m sorry,” he said, ashamed, but unbelievably relieved.

“For what?” Takao looked up from the envelope to stare at him.

Shun found it hard to look back, and not even for the usual reasons. His voice shook as he said, “I lied.”

Takao didn’t ask him to explain any more, he just carried on staring for a while until Shun looked away again and he heard Takao opening the envelope and unfolding the letter.

He was quiet for several minutes until, “Why?”

“Uh…” Shun hadn’t really dived into this prepared to answer to that part. He’d expected anger (which would have been totally justified and understandable), not calm questions that he didn’t even want to know the answer to himself. When he met Takao’s eyes again he just wanted to be as honest with him as he could. “It was… selfish. I didn’t want to not be able to spend as much time with you if you started going out with a girl instead.”

His face burned to admit it out loud, but at least his wasn’t the only one. Takao laughed softly, rubbing the back of his neck as they both looked away again. “Well, I mean, you know,” he returned the letter to its envelope and put it down, “with basketball and… and everything…” Takao was rarely ever left lost for words, but he shrugged and whatever he had wanted to say was obviously not going to leave his lips. Somehow Shun understood him anyway; Takao wasn’t mad at him, he wasn’t planning on getting a girlfriend, and Shun didn’t need to be afraid of being replaced or left behind.

As well as he could read Takao and as much as Takao was the more openly expressive of them both, he knew that Takao could still read him better without even looking right at him so he didn’t bother too hard to try to hide his joy, though he did wish he had the courage to hug him. A friendship with Takao involved more casual physical contact than he was used to, but while he’d grown more accustomed and then even fond of it he didn’t have the nerve to be the one to initiate it. Instead he changed the topic, gesturing to his laptop and suggesting, “We could watch a movie after we finish our homework?”

Already feeling giddy with relief, Takao’s twisting face and the ridiculous disgusted noise he made at that had Shun laughing before he could stop himself, letting himself smile unrestrained when he rolled his eyes and corrected himself. “Okay, after I finish _my_ homework then.”

Takao seemed to catch his breath for a moment and his expression snapped into a look of surprise and what Shun figured was relief that he wasn’t going to push him to do it now. He’d help him with it after practice tomorrow – he owed him that much at least.

Recovering back to his usual self quickly, Takao cheerfully snatched the laptop up and sat with it on Shun’s bed to decide on what they’d watch while Shun rushed through the work he had to do, wishing he’d just got on with it earlier instead of sitting around worrying himself sick, but thankful at least that there wasn’t a lot of it.

Takao had made it clear that he was forgiven so there really should be no more reason for Shun to be nervous, but when he sat down on his own bed and Takao shifted closer to balance the laptop on their legs between them, just like he normally would do whenever they watched a movie together like this, he was reminded of how the position he’d woke to find them in that morning and felt himself panicking again. Except that it was a weird kind of panic; a _nice_ kind. The way his skin buzzed under his clothes where they touched was standard for him at this point, as was the way his brain whispered to him that there was a reason for that, but the customary strong urge to resist and deny was fading. He couldn’t even remember his usual excuses to himself right now. He just _liked it._ Not because Takao was his friend, but because it was Takao.

He liked feeling the heat from Takao’s thigh and shoulder against his. He liked the rush in his chest when Takao smiled briefly at him for no apparent reason at all, and the swoop in his stomach when the bare skin of their arms touched after Takao started the movie and put down his hand without moving it away again. He liked that everything in him wanted to lean in more, touch more, wrap his arms around him and hold him. He liked how the memory of waking up with Takao cuddling into him made him want to giggle and yell at the same time. He more than liked the idea of waking up like that again. Or maybe falling asleep that way.

He mentally shook that thought off. That wasn’t going to happen – sleeping together cuddling just wasn’t something friends did. Even if it was Takao, he shouldn’t expect too much. He should just be happy with what he _could_ have, which was a lot more than he could have ever expected before he knew him.

Takao was always so familiar and close, always the one whenever Shun thought he knew their boundaries to do something that pushed them just that tiny bit. Surely it should be fine if Shun could just get on the same level. Or at least meet him half way… Maybe just a quarter of the way?

The only issue dampening that idea was that he didn’t have the courage to get any closer unless Takao did it for him. He wished he could act as relaxed about it as Takao was, but the more relaxed Takao got about being close to Shun, the more it flustered Shun when it happened, but it also made him crave it more. It made him want to be able to at least act as confident about them touching as Takao was.

He’d reached out through the night after Takao had come into his bed, but his excuse then had been to comfort him when he was afraid. He shouldn’t need to feel like he had to have an excuse to do what Takao did so easily every day. It shouldn’t scare him so much. Shun was probably being kind of silly for how much he worried about it.

If he could just do _something_ , that would be enough.

He saw Takao through the darkened screen in the moment between one scene and the next, saw how close they were and how easy it would be to just tilt his head to the side to rest it on Takao’s shoulder. It would be so easy and not any more intimate than anything Takao had ever done himself. All he had to do was let his head tip just a little.

He just wouldn’t move no matter how many times he kept telling himself to just do it. Every time he thought to himself “Right, _now!_ ” He felt himself freeze.

He tried to shift into it to make it seem more natural, like he was just getting himself more comfortable, but then stopped before he could make himself do it. When staying like that got too uncomfortable he tried again to get into a better position, but again when it came to actually laying down his head he chickened out at the last moment his body locked up all rigid.

Just when he was deciding that maybe he wasn’t ready to make that kind of step himself yet after all, Takao yawned and a moment later was laying his head down on Shun’s shoulder like it was nothing and sighed.

“If he wasn’t the main character he definitely would have died like three times right there,” Takao snorted. “You can see the other end of the arrow coming right through his back. We should have made popcorn.”

Shun gave himself a few seconds to let it sink in, taking in one long deep breath and slowly letting it out again before he let his own head come to rest gently on top of Takao’s as he hummed in agreement.

Okay then, maybe _next time_ he’d be brave enough to follow his instincts first, but at least this time he had reciprocated instead of remaining totally stiff, too petrified to just go with it.

They watched the rest of the movie like that, with only the occasional interjecting comment from Takao who was unusually quiet. Shun wondered if that was because of the sound of the rising wind outside, though it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been the night before.

He’d grown so comfortable there that when the movie finished and Takao moved, stretching out before jumping up from the bed, Shun almost thought he might just grab his arm and pull him back down onto the bed with him. Just acknowledging his urge to do that was enough to make him seize up again. He’d never been someone to crave contact so much until Takao had come along and practically smothered him in it.

Maybe it wasn’t really that strange at all. Maybe it made perfect sense. Maybe it was because he was away from his family for so long for the first time in his life. Maybe Takao felt the same.

He sat on his bed hugging his knees while he waited for Takao to come back in from the bathroom and turn out the light so they could sleep, but when Takao stepped into the room after his shower, rubbing his still damp hair with a towel, he felt that odd tug in his chest again.

He said it before he could freeze up again just as Takao reached out to turn off the light, “It’s getting windy again.”

Takao paused with his fingers on the switch and glanced at the window.

“Oh. Yeah,” he said. “Looks like it’s starting to rain too.”

They stared at each other for a moment while Takao waited for Shun to get to his point.

“It…” his voice stuck in his throat and the words came out croaky and rough, but he tried to push through it as quickly as possible before he lost his nerve again. “It’ll probably get stormy again tonight.”

“Huh? What?” Takao checked the window again, dropping the towel now that his hair was dry enough. “It’s not that –” He hesitated, his eyes flicking from the window to Shun to his own bed, then back to the window again, reassessing. “Oh, uh… Actually, yeah, I guess it is picking up a little. You’re probably right. Yeah. It… it sounds louder now.”

It didn’t sound any louder to Shun at all really, and he hoped that he wasn’t feeding Takao’s fear by suggesting it, but he didn’t know how to take it back now without sounding like an idiot. And anyway, maybe it _would_ get stormy again later through the night.

Shun moved over and pulled back the corner of the quilt, and in his rush to get away from the theoretical storm that may or may not be coming, Takao almost left the light on before he hurried back to hit the switch.

They lay on their backs, shoulders resting together just as they had been while they’d watched the movie, except Takao didn’t move any closer this time, and Shun had already used up all his daring on the invitation.

“Goodnight,” he whispered.

He felt Takao turn his head to look at him, but he didn’t say anything, and after a while Shun closed his eyes to avoid the nagging urge to stare right back at him. He focused instead on breathing normally and just hoped he’d be able to sleep soon.


	15. "I love when you're rough."

Shun stopped writing, the pen in his hand hovering paused over his homework as he gave himself a moment before he continued.

A ball of paper – _another_ ball of paper – hit him in the back of the head as soon as his pen touched the page.

He closed his eyes, took another steady breath, and carried on again. He didn’t need to be able to see behind himself to know that Takao was getting more and more irritated with each time he threw one and got no reaction.

“Izuki-san,” Takao whined behind him for what felt like the fiftieth time. He threw another ball of paper. “Come _on_ , Izuki-san.”

Takao kept at it, changing tactic to throwing them at Shun’s homework instead – hitting them over Shun’s head so that they bounced off the wall and down to his hand while he went on calling “Izuki-san. Izuki-san. _Izu-ki-san_.” – until eventually it stopped and Shun heard a soft _thwump_ and a petulant sigh that meant he’d thrown himself backwards on his bed.

He assumed that that meant that Takao had run out of paper within reach, but he couldn’t see for himself what was going on behind him because he’d exhausted his eyes during their last practice game a couple days ago with another nearby college; exhausted them to the point of watering so badly that he’d had to sit out the last quarter on the bench and watch his blurry teammates lose by a single point. Now they just felt dry and sore.

“I’m _borrrrrred_ ,” Takao groaned loudly. When he got no response he heaved a heavy sigh, and then again a moment later. There was a moment of silence in which Shun could feel Takao staring at him so intently that it made him shiver. “Come practice with me.”

“You know I can’t.” He really couldn’t. Takao wasn’t the only one already itching to get back to their private practice sessions, but his eyes needed to rest whether he wanted to let them or not.

“I know you can’t do that,” he said. “I mean regular practice.”

“I have homework to do.”

“Just do it tomorrow.”

“It’s due tomorrow.”

“Ask for an extension.”

“I already got one.”

Takao’s pillow hit him from behind, bouncing off his head and knocking him so that he drew a line across the page. He ignored it, letting it fall to the floor behind him, and got on with the writing. “Why don’t you practice with someone else?”

“Like who?”

Shun reeled off a list of the first names that came to mind, but Takao dismissed them all with lazy excuses that got less credible the more people he mentioned until eventually he was just waving them off with a, “Nah.”

“You could practice alone?”

When Takao went quiet for too long, he gave in for just a moment, turning to look at him to see him staring so pleadingly at him that Shun almost gave in completely. Almost. “Or you could study?”

Takao made a sound like a scoff and rolled his eyes, pulling a face that clearly meant that he wouldn’t even dignify that idea with any real response at all. Shun turned away from him back to his work before Takao could draw him back in.

There was a long stretch of silence, and then something else hit his head; something soft, falling over into his face and covering his eyes. Shun resisted the bizarre urge to breath in the scent from Takao’s shirt and instead calmly removed it to put it down on the desk.

“Pay attention to me.”

It took all of Shun’s inner strength to not smile.

“I’ll keep on throwing things.”

“Then keep on throwing things,” Shun shrugged, knowing full well that Takao wouldn’t get up to find more ammo once he ran out of things to throw. Which, unless he planned on throwing the rest of the clothes he was wearing or the bed itself, was now.

He was half right; Takao didn’t get more ammo, but he took Shun by surprise when his arms suddenly appeared at either side of his head, propped on his shoulders while Takao rested his forehead against Shun’s back. It made him jump enough to drop his pen and forget about everything he’d been writing as it rolled off the desk and fell onto the floor.

He should really be used to this by now.

Why did it still affect him so much?

It wasn’t as though he was so starved for touch and affection before that this should still be making his heart feel like it was trying to race its way up his chest. Like his skin was burning and tingling every moment Takao touched him. Like he was elated and angry at the same time.

“I am so _borrrred_ ,” Takao whined from behind him, stressing each word. “Let’s just do something for like… an hour? Then you can finish after.”

“Like what?”

Takao shrugged. Shun was out of suggestions. Takao wouldn’t go bother someone else, wouldn’t go somewhere alone, his homework was done – but Shun really needed to finish this. If he was honest with himself he’d have to admit that if he wasn’t already so far behind in this class and pushing his luck with how generous they would be with the deadline extensions, then he would have eagerly dropped everything to spend more time with Takao just to make him happier. Like he usually did.

He’d do just about anything for that damn smile.

Composing himself again – sort of – Shun attempted to shake that from his head and rescue his pen from the floor, but Takao wasn’t making it easy. He stayed there hanging over Shun’s shoulders, letting his weight threaten to pull them both to the floor if Shun lost balance while trying to reach for his pen. Annoyed, he abandoned the pen and settled instead on half of a snapped pencil that was lying on the desk within reach.

One of Takao’s arms fell away from his shoulder, but instead of moving back to the bed like Shun thought he was going to do, Takao rested his chin on Shun’s shoulder to watch him write. For a few short seconds Shun thought he was just going to hold on there and, as distracting as that was, at least he’d be able to get on with his work.

He got exactly four and a half words in before Takao lazily lifted his hand again and flicked the top of the pencil.

Giving himself a moment, Shun carried on, but after another couple of words Takao did it again and Shun had to take a deep breath.

“Izuki-san…”

Shun ignored him.

“ _Izuki_ - _san_.”

“What?”

He did it a third time and Shun had to close his eyes and count to ten before resuming the work, only for Takao to do it again the moment his pencil touched the paper.

“Cut it out,” he said, shrugging one shoulder as though that would shift him.

Takao dropped his head so that his forehead rested on Shun’s shoulder and heaved another big sigh that for some reason made Shun feel almost as restless as Takao was behaving. Before he even started writing again, Takao pulled back his head just far enough to whisper “Shun-chan…” into Shun’s ear and blow down the back of his shirt onto his neck.

“TAKAO!” In a weird panic, Shun yelped in surprise, dropping the pencil onto the desk and squirming like he could get away from the strange sensation travelling down his spine.

“Alright, alright, I’ll quit it,” Takao complied finally, but he didn’t move from his spot hanging over Shun, holding on until he stopped trying to wriggle away. When Shun didn’t move to do any more of his homework, too wary of Takao’s next trick, he said, “Really, I won’t do that again, okay?”

“Okay…” He slowly picked up the pencil again.

Shun tried not to be too distracted by Takao’s extreme proximity, getting on with his work the best he could with Takao’s chin propped on his shoulder while he watched him write. Several minutes went by in silence but for the pencil scratching, and then Takao lifted a hand and flicked the pencil so hard that it flew out of Shun’s hand.

Shun reacted so quickly that he was out of his chair and tackling Takao onto his bed before he even knew what he was going to do. He heard himself growl in anger as he took him down by the middle, but Takao only laughed, delighted by Shun’s response even as he fell backwards. He continued laughing as they wrestled for control, infuriating Shun even more when he very soon easily got the upper hand, rolling them over and sitting on Shun’s thighs to hold him down.

Shun tried to drag him sideways off him again, but Takao grabbed his arms, quickly pinning them to the bed, smirking while Shun tried to break free.

“Surrender!” he laughed, yelling over the sound of Shun struggling and leaning closer over him.

“No!” Shun tried kicking, tried throwing them both from the bed, yanking his arms free of Takao’s grip. He managed to make Takao lose balance, but only barely, and just for a second before Takao had him pinned again, cackling as he quickly regained the advantage.

“I love when you’re rough,” he teased, smirking as he held them both back down on the bed with one hand, and reaching with the other for Shun’s side.

Some odd feeling between horror and anticipation hit Shun the moment he realised what Takao was going to do, and he cried out, trying to throw Takao off him.

“Surrender!” Takao yelled again, tickling him until suddenly Shun ran out of anger and energy to fight, and he began laughing so hard that tears prickled his eyes and clouded his vision.

His laughter appeared to take Takao far more by surprise than his attack had, and he stopped tickling, his smug grin fading into a confused but soft smile, and his grip loosening around Shun’s arms while he watched him like he was seeing something he’d never seen before.

Shun quit struggling as soon as he realised that the tickling had stopped, and he let his head fall back onto the mattress as his laughter calmed.

“Okay,” he sighed when he could finally breathe normally again.

“Okay?”

“Okay, I surrender,” he shrugged, or tried to anyway, with his arms still over his head. He could have easily broke free and got the better of him now, but all the fight had been worn out of him. “You win.”

“I… what?” Takao blinked. “What do I win?”

“I’ll finish the work tomorrow. I was almost done anyway.”

He expected the usual delighted grin he received when Takao got his way, but instead Takao just carried on staring like he hadn’t even heard him and apparently unaware of just how close he was leaning.

The room seemed to have gone very quiet. Shun wanted to wriggle free and break the suddenly weird atmosphere, but he stayed pinned by Takao’s eyes. He felt his smile shaking.

“So,” he swallowed and tried to speak normally but in his awkwardness his voice, already raspy from laughter, came out as barely more than a whisper, “what do you want to do?”

Takao still didn’t seem to hear him.

Shun tried to blink away the blurriness, forcing a tear that clung to his lashes to fall. Takao’s eyes followed it slowly roll down his cheek, catching it with his thumb before it could land on the bed. Subconsciously, he leaned his face in to the touch so that it was cupped in Takao’s hand.

Was Takao getting closer? It felt like Takao was getting closer. Maybe he was trying to hear what that loud thumping sound was that was coming from Shun’s chest. He was almost certain Takao was leaning in closer to him. He felt his own head instinctively tilting closer too.

At the same moment he began to move Takao’s eyes bulged in horror and he recoiled, practically leaping from the bed in his rush to get away and stumbling over his own things on the floor as he backed away towards the door. Still trying to catch his breath Shun managed to push himself up, wanting to say something, but he just didn’t know what to say.

“Actually, you’re right you should finish your work,” Takao said, laughing too loudly as he grabbed his shoes from the floor, clutching them to his chest and reaching out behind himself for the door handle. He missed it several times, but wouldn’t take his eyes from Shun, who wanted to apologise but couldn’t bring himself out of his stupor to do _anything_ at all. “I should go I have other people to do – I mean, stuff to bother – I’m… Anyway, I just remembered, I have to be at… somewhere. So. Yeah. Bye.”

The door slammed shut behind him, leaving Shun to sit on the bed in paralysed silence until he recovered from the shock enough to move so that he could groan into his hands and throw himself back down on the bed, infuriated at his own foolishness.


	16. "Can I borrow a kiss? I promise I'll give it back."

Shun leaned lazily over the counter, his head propped up on one hand and a leg crossed behind him while the other hand drummed a simple tune onto his notepad with his fingertips. It wasn’t as though he had nothing better he could be doing while at work on a moderately busy day, but he was just so very _distracted_ right now.

A shadow cast over him as a customer appeared and began hurriedly barking out their order, and Shun scrambled to readjust his attention and write it all down. While he was counting out the change, a row of small chubby fingers gripped the counter and a pair of eyes peered over it at him.

“Are you a _real_ pirate?” The kid asked, her voice hushed in awe.

“Uh,” he looked up, trying to juggle making three cups of coffee, two milkshakes, and a good answer. The expression on the customer’s face told him that _he had better be._ “Yeah. I’m a real pirate.”

The half of the kid’s face that he could see scrunched up.

“Well you don’t sound like a real pirate,” she told him. “Why do you work here if you’re a pirate?”

“I…” he really wished that he had Takao’s way with children right now. Or his way with people in general at least would have helped with the way the customer was glaring at him. “I haven’t finished pirate school yet?”

The kid rolled her eyes, reaching up over the counter to take her milkshake from his hands. “Then you’re not a real pirate, are you.”

“I guess not,” he shrugged, pushing the rest of the order into a plastic cup holder.

They walked away and Shun sighed, free again to resume staring across the room at where Takao was sitting alone at a table appearing to be totally absorbed in the text book he had open in front of him, his expression looking deep in focus, even though he hadn’t turned the page once since he’d opened it when he’d first arrived. He’d been there for a while now and hadn’t bought a single drink the entire time either, so technically Shun should be telling him to buy something or leave so that paying customers could use the table, but he knew he wouldn’t do it. He hadn’t even come over to chat or just to say hi like he usually would. Not that Sun had really expected that much from him today.

After Takao had run out on him the previous night they had hardly spoken more than a few words between them. Takao had come home late, waking Shun despite taking obvious care to be quieter than usual, and had gone immediately to sleep in his own bed.

Shun was still feeling the let-down of that morning when he’d come back to their room from his early class to find Takao awake and had happily shown off his new uniform, glad that for once it was way cooler than it was embarrassing. He’d expected that Takao would react in excitement, find something to make light fun of him for it anyway, and then they’d laugh off the awkwardness from last night. But Takao’s only reaction had been to take one short glance down at it and give a small fake laugh before he’d quickly walked away to shut himself in the bathroom. He didn’t even bother taking the usual photo that he always insisted on taking when the new month’s uniforms came, leaving Shun to head off to work alone and kind of disappointed.

That definitely wasn’t the most disappointing part though. He had been so convinced last night that Takao had been about to kiss him, but now after having time to calm down and think clearly he wasn’t so sure. He could have easily misinterpreted the whole thing, especially with his eagle eye on rest. It was possible he’d been relying on that too heavily lately with so much of their time spent focusing on honing it.

Takao’s behaviour since then was difficult for him to work out. Maybe it had been a part of their weird competition and he had recoiled on discovering that Shun thought it was serious. Maybe in the heat of the moment, _maybe_ , he HAD been about to kiss him despite not feeling that way about him… probably. It was hard to see Takao as someone who could be the type to shy away from getting something if he wanted it. Maybe he hadn’t been about to do anything of the sort and had just freaked out to see the way Shun had moved towards him.

Because Takao had shown over and over again that he was a lot better at reading Shun than Shun was at reading him. And whether Takao’s intentions had been to kiss him or not, Shun had definitely been about to let it happen – to encourage it and take a proactive part in it even. Because if there was only one thing he knew for certain right now, even if it had taken him until sometime later that night to realise it, it was that he had very much wanted Takao to kiss him.

He still did.

He wanted it very badly.

He’d spent the entire night drifting between asleep and awake as he came to realise and accept this, and he’d spent far too much of his shift that morning contemplating what that could have been like if it had actually happened, finally able to identify the meaning of the warm squirming feeling that took over inside of him.

He liked Takao.

He _liked_ Takao.

And now Takao obviously knew it too.

Another customer demanded his attention for long enough that when he looked back over at Takao he saw that he was no longer alone at his table.

Shun recognised the guy now joining him as one of Takao’s tutors and wasn’t too surprised to see him there. Takao had long since made the café the regular place to meet up with his tutors – shortly after the first time Shun had seen him there in fact – but he was rarely ever that early. Shun guessed the tutor must have been late, though he was a serious looking guy who didn’t seem the sort to ever be that late either.

Shun watched them while the other guy clearly indicated that Takao should go get drinks and Takao apparently tried to argue back to no avail. His heart thudded eagarly in his chest as Takao came closer, and he didn’t try to hide his delight. What was the point? The crush was out of the bag now; there was really no point him denying it.

He still couldn’t figure out how Takao felt about that though.

Takao stood in front of him, staring at the menu on the board behind him as though he didn’t know it by heart instead of actually looking at him. “Can I have a…”

Shun reeled off Takao’s usual order with a smile, but didn’t get more than a momentary flicker of eye contact and a nod in return.

While Shun made the drinks – an extra-large concoction of syrups with cream on top for Takao and a plain latte for the other – Takao looked at his phone, the menu, back behind him at the table, or really anywhere but at Shun, who felt his annoyance building. He was used to having more attention from Takao, he had grown accustomed to having it always, and although it could occasionally reach levels of more than a person could reasonably handle, Shun would take unreasonable clinginess from him over ignorance any day.

He was beginning to see that if he wanted things back to normal he was just going to have to act like everything was normal and assume Takao would follow that lead in his own time.

He put the drinks down on the counter but didn’t let go. When Takao reached out to take them, he held on and wouldn’t let them go until Takao looked up at him in confusion.

“I need help with something. It’s urgent.” That got his attention.

A concerned frown wrinkled Takao’s brow. Shun missed his smile already. “What do you need?”

He let go of the latte and held onto Takao’s drink over his hand so that he wouldn’t let go and leaned forward over the counter, getting closer until Takao began slowly leaning away. Takao’s eyes darted between Shun’s face and his hands, but he didn’t try to let go.

Lowering his voice so that other customers wouldn’t hear him, he asked, “Can I borrow a kiss?” Takao concern turned into utter bewilderment and his face turned cherry red. Shun brushed a thumb over Takao’s hand and attempted to flash him the same sort of smirk Takao would give him when the teasing was the other way around, but he wasn’t sure he quite pulled it off and Takao seemed to have turned to scarlet stone. “I promise I’ll give it back.”

They stayed like that for several very long seconds until Shun realised that Takao wasn’t going to take the bait to counter with a line of his own. He didn’t appear like he was going to move or say anything at all.

“I guess we can mark that down as a point for me,” he said, trying not to sound disappointed as he stood back and released Takao’s hand and drink.

Another second ticked by before Takao let out a quiet laugh, his lips twitching into an almost smile.

“Ah,” he forced another louder laugh, “yeah. You got me.”

He turned and tried to quickly walk away with his drinks, but then stopped and turned back, obviously remembering what he’d forgotten.

“It’s fine,” Shun said, waving him off. “I’ve got it.”

Takao barely managed another small smile – which he directed more at his drinks than at Shun, but at least it was more sincere than before – and hurried back to his table. It was a start.

“Not that I care,” his manager said from behind him, making him jump, “it’s your own money, but if you keep buying expensive drinks for cute boys then you’re not going to have any of it left come payday.”

“Huh?” Shun turned to see her writing something down on the bench behind him. Likely how much Shun owed for the last order. “Oh, no, he’s my roommate.”

She stopped writing and looked up at him, levelling him with a pitying look before she shook her head with a disapproving sigh and got back to work. Shun got back to gazing across the room at his cute roommate, contemplating how much trouble this crush had already caused him and how much more he was absolutely undoubtedly going to allow it to cause in the future, and mentally replaying last night as though if he kept on imagining it somehow he could go back and do something differently; sometimes a version of it where he didn’t lean up like an idiot and scare Takao away, sometimes a version of it where he did lean up and it still didn’t scare Takao away…

When Takao looked up and caught him looking it was only the lifetime of training himself to hold an expressionless facade for pun making purposes that stopped Shun from showing his surprise and how much he wanted to jolt and turn away to pretend he hadn’t been staring so hungrily. Instead he forced down his apprehension and grinned at him, and was pleased to see that although Takao looked away again immediately, he was smiling down at his textbook, cheeks a little pinker. It gave Shun the kind of swooping sensation that before now he would usually have tried to explain away to himself as something else.

Well, except that it seemed this would give Shun an advantage in this silly game of theirs.

Takao glanced over again and Shun wished he had the kind of nerve Takao typically had. Usually Takao would have thrown him a wink, or maybe blown a kiss if he was feeling especially flirty. Even if it was just a game, just some dumb point scoring contest that no one else even knew about, the memory of those times and the thought of miming that kind of thing made a pleasant warmth bloom inside of him.

He guessed he probably should feel scared or embarrassed, but mostly he felt relieved to finally understand it. And something about understanding it made the feelings easier to cope with.

At first Shun had wondered if the way he felt about Takao would make being friends difficult or wrong somehow, but the more he thought about it the more he realised how wrong that was. It didn’t have to be upsetting to be ‘just friends’ nor did he have to let it get between them. He didn’t have to have ‘all or nothing’. As long as Takao could get past his discomfort and sudden odd awkwardness of the situation then Shun was sure everything would be fine. He couldn’t see why there should be any problem to carry on being friends with someone he liked – it was surely better than the alternative – and this was his _best_ friend. Nothing had to change.


	17. "Nothing risque, nothing gained."

Shun was surprised only for a moment when he woke to find his a face buried in a mess of black hair, one arm trapped at his chest, the other resting on a warm hip, and what felt somehow like too many limbs wrapped around him – until he remembered being jostled awake during the night as someone climbed into his bed. He’d moved over to make space without a word and quickly fallen back to sleep again to the sound of a not-quite storm rumbling in the sky outside. There had been a storm the night before that too, but Takao had endured it alone in his own bed, and had suffered the next day from sleep deprivation and an unusually crabby mood because of it. Shun guessed he’d

He yawned, but resisted stretching just yet. The slow, steady breaths against his chest let Shun know that Takao was certainly still deeply out, but he didn’t particularly want to risk it when it seemed a part of him had decided this would be appropriate situation to wake up earlier than the rest of him had.

Takao had taken a few days to totally get back to his usual self alone with Shun since the _possibly maybe almost-kiss_ ‘incident’, but basketball practice and Shun’s stubborn determination not to act like anything was amiss seemed to help. Aside from an excess of sleepy pouting that one day, everything appeared to be normal now, and he wasn’t going to let something as stupid as morning wood jeopardise that. Luckily though, Shun was always the first to wake.

Slowly, cautiously, he twisted his way out of Takao’s grip, attempting to remove one strong grasping limb from his body at a time.

Even unconscious, Takao was exasperating to wrestle with, clinging on tighter every time Shun tried to break free of his hold and making mumbled incoherent complaints without even once opening his eyes. Eventually Shun escaped and made it to the bathroom, spending long enough in there that when he returned, showered and dressed, he found Takao eating his breakfast on Shun’s bed and staring groggily at his phone.

“We got early practice today,” he answered Shun’s silent question, mumbling it through a mouthful of toast and dropping crumbs onto the sheets.

Seeing the extra plate set out for him with an extra share of Takao’s lazy excuse for a breakfast and feeling a little warmed by the fact that he’d even thought of him this early in the morning, Shun wanted to thank him, but in the end thought better of it and threw a towel at him instead, hitting Takao in the side of the face and making him turn away from his phone screen to shoot him an unimpressed glare. “Don’t eat that on my bed.”

Takao stuck out his tongue but did move, getting up to sit himself on the desk while he finished his breakfast unhurriedly. The low morning light made his eyes appear to glow a golden amber as they followed Shun around the room.

Practice was about as much fun as it could be at barely half past the crack of dawn with the ground still damp from the night, but with summer fast approaching the temperature outside would build quickly and they’d all be glad to have been done with their laps before that happened. However, when everyone else was beginning their cooldown stretches and showering, Takao would drag Shun off back to the gym to fill the rest of their time before classes started, making them both almost late.

Classes were becoming more manageable now as he got accustomed to the early mornings, extra exercise, and higher workload. And between classes they walked outside where everything had dried out already and ate together. Takao would fill silences with excited chatter, and Shun would be happy to just listen, required only to speak when Takao’s voice would slow down as though he suddenly realised that he was still talkin out loud and was checking that Shun hadn’t gotten bored or zoned out on him. He seemed pleasantly surprised each time he found Shun still interested and fully attentive.

Shun told Takao some of his puns, relishing the way he laughed so loudly and earnestly at them instead of rolling his eyes and telling him to shut up or that he was annoying.

They talked a little of home and what they’d do when they went back for summer break, and then they talked a lot about basketball, the games that they had scheduled for when they got back, and the tournament that would take place later that year.

When their afternoon practice was over, Shun stayed behind with Takao as usual, but they’d hardly even begun to practice before the door opened and they had unexpected visitors. Or rather, one widely grinning visitor.

Takao groaned miserably before she’d even had a chance to say anything, but she smiled brightly at his response anyway.

“You owe me,” she said cheerfully. “You can’t say no.”

“But we have to practice,” he tried, looking as though he already knew it wouldn’t work. “We have an important–”

“You owe me _five_ ,” she said, more firmly. “We drop everything when you need extras for a game.”

“I can’t risk injuring myself before a game.”

“That’s bullshit, you know you won’t. You won’t have to do anything much it’s just a fundraiser you basically just need to have fun. And anyway, you _said_ you would help with this when I needed it already.”

She didn’t even for one second look like she’d budge. Takao’s head snapped to the side, looking desperately to Shun for help.

Shun could only shrug. “If you already said you’d do it…”

“Wow. Betrayed.” Dropping his shoulders and rolling his eyes he sighed, “ _Fiiiinnee_.”

“Your basketball team is getting all the funds for your tournament so we can’t get to ours so the least you can do is–”

“That’s cause we’re actually good,” Takao muttered to Shun, not too subtly, ducking swiftly to avoid the hand that flew his way and cackling loudly when she tried to chase him to take another shot. “Okay, okay, I said I’d do it already!”

Not really looking very cross, she reached into her bag and pulled out a bundle of clothes. Takao took them gingerly when she held them out to him, looking like he expected something bad. On unfolding it and seeing that it was, as he’d clearly expected, the girls’ uniform, he groaned again.

“It’s to raise money,” she reminded him, looking amused. “We don’t have any guys on the team and we couldn’t order new uniforms just for this. Besides, this way you’ll get more attention.” When he levelled her with an unamused look and said nothing, she sighed and went on, “I’ll give you our gym time for extra practice for a week if we reach our target.”

“… Two weeks.”

“One week.”

“Ten days.”

“One week.”

Takao then turned to Shun for one last attempt at getting help, but Shun was far too entertained to give it to him. It’s not like his input would make her change her mind.

“No risqué, no gain,” he said simply.

“I hoped you’d feel that way about it,” she said, turning a smirk on Shun. Nervously he glanced at Takao, but he obviously wasn’t getting any help now. She pulled out another uniform from her bag and thrust it into his hands.

“It… might not fit,” he said lamely, able to think of no other excuse quickly enough.

She rolled her eyes. “As though you don’t share a single wardrobe and everything in it between you both. I know your size.”

Takao opened his mouth but wasn’t given a moment to argue back.

“Bright and early tomorrow. Don’t say it’s too early, I know you’ll be at practice first.”

And without another word, she ran off, leaving them standing there holding the uniforms.

“Okay, but,” Takao said eventually, throwing the uniform down onto the bench, “we'll get extra gym time!”


	18. "You wouldn't dare!"

Shun woke to the sound of his phone ringing, the quiet beeping tone growing louder and dragging him slowly from his sleep. He tried to reach out to answer it but couldn’t seem to communicate this with his arm and opened his eyes to find that it was weighted down. Now fully awake he thought that maybe he remembered Takao climbing into his bed last night, as was becoming a common occurrence since the heatwave they seemed to be having lately had brought more stormy weather. Although it wasn’t as usual for him to wake up to find himself wrapped around Takao rather than the other way around.

The sudden silence when his phone stopped ringing reminded Shun why he was awake in the first place, but he didn’t bother escaping to see who had called. He could check later.

He knew he needn’t be too afraid of waking Takao, because it took an impressive effort to wake him on purpose, never mind unintentionally, but he liked to savour this part of the day lately, giving himself just a few moments to linger before he extracted himself from the warm human tangle that his bed had become every morning. It wasn’t exactly easy for two grown athletes to fit onto the thin single beds afforded to them by the college, but so long as Takao wanted to be there it wasn’t like they had any better options, and Shun wasn’t about to start complaining or kicking Takao back to his own bed any time soon.

His phone started ringing again and with a reluctant sigh Shun reached over with his free hand, attempting to reach where his phone lay on the floor under his bed, but with one arm being held captive he couldn’t get far enough to touch it and gave up, waiting for the ringing to stop again and hoping for a little extra time in bed. He didn’t have work today, he didn’t have any classes, and he wasn’t exactly sure of the time but it definitely felt too early for a weekend practice. It couldn’t be that important–

His phone began ringing again almost immediately after it had stopped and Shun was forced to tug himself free more roughly, drawing a sleepy whine of protest from Takao as he was jostled and robbed of his pillow.

Shun shook out the painful prickling sensation of pins and needles creeping up his arm as the regular blood flow returned to it so that he could lean over the side of the bed to answer the call. He was fully awake by the time the call ended and as much as he wanted to just throw his arms around Takao and sleep longer, he had to wake him.

“Takao,” he said gently, turning to give his shoulders a small shake before remembering that that wasn’t going to work and trying again much louder. “Takao, wake up!”

When he got nothing but an incomprehensible grumble for his efforts he leaned closer to speak right into his ear, but stopped when Takao mumbled through a yawn, “M’wake. S’at?”

Shun paused while he tried to decipher the question.

Takao reached up a hand to pat Shun’s where it still rested on his shoulder, saying more clearly, “Who was it?”

Quieter again, he told him, “Coach. We have a game.”

Takao turned his head quickly to look incredulously up at him through one sleepy eye, his nose brushing Shun’s. “No we don’t.”

_Too close!_

Shun’s head jerked back, but he didn’t exactly hurry when he moved away. He pulled his hand back from under Takao’s and swung his legs out of the bed to get up, turning his back on Takao and making himself concentrate on thoughts of the day ahead while his heart resumed its regular rhythm.

“We do now,” he said, pulling on socks. “Practice match. We have to go right now.”

“ _Right_ _now_?” Takao made a disgusted noise as Shun got up. “He can’t just…” He waved a hand in the air over his face like that explained it. Shun agreed, but picked out the first shirt his hand touched from the disorganised pile that lay at the bottom of their closet and pulled it on anyway while Takao pushed himself up to prop his head in one hand and lean on his elbow, just watching Shun rush around the room with a faint curious smile curling at his lips like he’d done something strange. He reached back into the closet and threw the next one he found at Takao’s face.

Takao caught it and waited for a few seconds longer before also forcing himself up. They hurried, tripping over clothes and clutter on the floor and rushing a pathetic breakfast of barely toasted bread as they grabbed their bags and left the room.

It turned out that what “We have a practice game so get here _now!_ ” really meant was, “I arranged a practice game for Monday, so practice today is gonna be earlier and longer.” Which really didn’t leave anyone in a good mood by the time they got started.

Shun and Takao were both too tired to do any more after the coach had finally released them, but having won extra time in the gym from Takao’s friends on the cheerleading team that they were determined not to waste they went anyway, though they still didn’t get much done since they ended up sitting on the floor talking instead. They rolled a ball back and forth between them while they discussed tactics, teams, school, and eventually let the topic meander off onto other less important things.

Eventually Shun got up to at least make some practice shots, doing a good job of not stepping on Takao who (intentionally, he was sure) lay right in the way while looking through his phone and interrupting the conversation to make the occasional comment on his technique without turning his head to look at it.

A sound from Takao’s phone meant that he was watching videos and Shun went quiet again only to recognise the sounds of the fundraiser they’d ‘helped’ with. Resisting the temptation to go see what Takao had suddenly started giggling over he tried to block it out and made another shot.

“Hey!” Takao waved up excitedly at him with his hand, still not taking his eyes from the screen. “Shun-chan, look I’m on this one!”

Shun almost missed a shot. “That’s… great?”

“Hell yeah it is! Look, you’re in it too.”

“Great,” Shun gritted out, pushing down the embarrassment of the event.

“Don’t worry,” Takao grinned up at him, “you’re not in it much.”

He held the phone up higher for Shun to see Takao showing off by doing backflips, looking as ridiculous as Shun had felt with the cheerleaders’ crop top and miniskirt on over the top of his basketball uniform. At least they hadn’t been forced to wear it properly. The comedy element along with Takao’s charm and blazing personality was certainly a crowd-pleaser, and he was never not eager to entertain.

Shun went back to making shots – or he tried to, but Takao began sighing irritably.

“What?” He asked, stopping to stare back down at him in confusion to see a familiar pout.

“You didn’t watch it all.”

“I was there,” he said, turning away again without looking down at the video. “I already saw it.”

He only had to wait another minute before Takao was making those impatient huffing sounds and Shun had to press his lips tight to look like he was concentrating and not holding back a laugh.

“You weren’t there for this one,” he said after another minute, and Shun knew he’d spent that time searching for one where Shun couldn’t use being there as an excuse not to watch right through. He would, of course, happily watch every single second of them without needing to be forced, but for the moment he just made a noncommittal hum and didn’t take his eyes from the hoop.

Takao’s foot pushed at the back of Shun’s knee just as he was about to make another shot, but instead of making him miss Shun just gave up on the shot and held the ball while he let himself laugh. Considering how much he actually wanted to be the centre of Takao’s attention, forcing Takao to work a little now and then for _his_ attention was too much fun to resist. Although Takao surely knew the game by now, he never failed to rise to the bait.

The grin he shot down at him though was met not with the put out frown he’d expected, but with a wily smirk that really should have worried him more than it made him go warm inside.

“Would you rather see the ones of yourself?”

“No,” Shun said flatly, turning back to the hoop. He threw the ball a little too hard and missed the shot.

“You know,” Takao sighed theatrically, “it’s a shame really.”

Shun eyed him warily as he picked up another ball. He didn’t bite, but Takao went on anyway.

“I have all these great pictures of you, and no one to share them with.”

He took his time making the shot.

“I could probably get this voted in as your next uniform.”

Shun shrugged, not worried. “It wouldn’t be the worst one I’ve had to wear. It wouldn’t be that interesting; it’s not like everyone around here didn’t already see it that day.”

“Maybe we should show off a few of the others a bit,” Takao suggested, his eyes glittering. “I could print them out and post them around. A few of these –” he held up his phone to show him a photo of one of the more appalling uniforms, “– around here will really brighten the classes up, don’t you think?”

Shun grimaced at the sight and memory of that one, but again he shrugged.  “Sure, if you want.”

He wasn’t going to give Takao the satisfaction of the embarrassed reaction he obviously wanted just to get back at him, especially when he was _fairly_ sure that he wouldn’t actually do that, but it was a little unnerving how he hadn’t been deterred yet at all, rather the mischievous edge in his voice seemed to be increasing.

“Look this one is good too.”

Shun forced himself to look again.

“And this one. Or this one.” He went on showing Shun pictures of himself, some of the more normal looking ones feeling somehow more embarrassing than the stupid costumes. “I should send them to people.”

“Yeah. Great.” Shun said, nodding his head. Hopefully if it got boring Takao would drop it and try to find another way to tease him. “You should do that.”

Takao’s smirk grew positively gleeful. “Great. I’ll send them to your sisters then.”

Shun threw the ball, missing the hoop completely by several feet as he span around to stare at Takao, failing to mask his distress in time.

“You don’t know them,” he said after a moment of anxious silence. His sisters would never let him live it down. Ever. As his sisters they already had plenty to gang up together against him and hold over his head, and they definitely didn’t need any extra ammo. “You don’t have their number or email and you’ve never met them so how could you–”

Takao gave him a funny look as though he’d said something stupid and held out his phone again to show a grainy old picture of himself and his sisters that he recognised from several years back.

“They’re on facebook,” Takao explained, his wicked smirk making Shun want to kind of hit him and kind of kiss him at the same time. “I can just tag them and–”

“You wouldn’t.”

Takao waited a beat. “Wouldn’t I?”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

If Shun had thought Takao couldn’t look any more delighted before…

“So it’s a dare now? Well, oka–”

Shun dived at him the moment he started tapping at the screen, trying to wrestle the phone from his grip. Takao laughed and held the phone out of Shun’s reach, but already being on the floor left him at a disadvantage and he ended up having to roll onto his front, clutching the phone to his chest to protect it.

“I’m deleting every single photo of me on there!” Shun told him, panting between words as he knelt over Takao, trapping him with his knees and trying to work his hands under him to reach it.

When he managed to get a hold of it, it was only for a second before Takao rolled over again, laughing as he knocked Shun onto the floor and the phone from his hand. The both scrambled for it, their fingertips touching it at the same time, but just before Shun could pull it closer, Takao slapped it away again and chose to concentrate his efforts on holding Shun back instead of going after it where it had skidded across the polished wood.

His ‘efforts’ though were mostly just wrapping himself around Shun’s middle and clinging on in an attempt to hold him back while he crawled across the floor on his hands and knees towards the phone, dragging Takao along with him.

There was a quiet struggle for several long moments when Takao tried to pry the phone from his hands and they continued rolling around on the floor like children, both too drained to even laugh about it. Shun ended up on his back trying to kick Takao away with his feet and holding the phone out of the way above his head, but Takao grabbed him by the ankles and dragged him closer again, pinning him with his entire body so that he could grab at his phone and lock his fingers together around it.

Shun held his hands over the phone too, keeping Takao from being able to actually use it to send any pictures, but not having the strength left to free it from between both of Takao’s hands.

Exhausted and at a stalemate, they stopped fighting.

Takao lasted maybe three seconds before letting himself collapse down to rest his head on Shun’s shoulder while they both caught their breaths, though he still didn’t release his hold on his phone.

“You _really_ want to keep those pictures of me, don’t you,” Shun tried to tease him, hoping to get him to drop his guard, but the effect was a little spoiled by the way he had to gasp for breath between words.

“Yes,” Takao replied simply, his voice muffled by Shun’s shirt. When he lifted his head again and only stared at him, Shun was glad they were both already red and sweating with racing hearts, because he was suddenly very uncomfortably aware of the fact that all of this was happening while Takao was panting heavily between his legs and not at all bothering to hold his own weight.

He needed Takao to say something – do anything – because he was just lying there. Just looking at Shun’s face.

Recovered enough to at least move and unable to endure the tension any longer, he wrapped his legs tightly around Takao’s middle and crossed them at the ankles, seeing his eyes widen comically when he did and then even more so when he used them to heave Takao to one side, rolling them over so that he sat on his stomach and was able to snatch the phone from his hands.

Takao yelped as he was taken down and tried to sit up again but didn’t have the strength left in him to fight back when Shun pressed him back down, leaning his weight on Takao like he’d done to Shun and attempting to hold both of his hands out of the way too with only one of his own while he held the phone in the other.

“Don’t,” Takao whined, simply lying there and giving up on the fight entirely. “Don’t delete them.”

“Why not?”

“I… I’m sentimental, okay? I don’t like losing pictures.”

“Give me a good reason,” Shun said, meaning to sound teasing, though it came out rough and serious thanks to his still ragged breathing.

Looking utterly defeated, Takao only shrugged – as best he could with his arms held over his head – and said, “Please.”

Shun felt the fight in him deflate.

“I won’t show anyone,” he promised. “I wasn’t really going to post them anywhere.”

For some reason that seemed to make Takao turn redder, but Shun just sighed and looked at the phone for an excuse not to look so closely at Takao’s face.

“Alright,” he conceded, pressing the lock on the phone and putting it down beside them.

Takao took a second or ten before repeating back to him, “‘Alright’?”

“Yeah,” Shun tipped his head.

Again Takao took his time to process this. “Wait, you’re really going to let me keep them?” Like it was just too easy for Shun to have meant it.

“Yes,” Shun laughed. He wasn’t even really sure he would have really deleted them all anyway. For unfortunately selfish reasons, he wasn’t totally unhappy with the idea that Takao enjoyed keeping pictures of him enough to fight him for them. “You said you won’t show anyone. I trust you.”

If Takao turned a shade red any darker Shun worried he might just go on and turn purple.

“They’re only photos,” he said. “It’s not like it would even be _that_ bad if –”

The gym doors opened loudly and the captain stepped in, freezing in the doorway when he saw the two of them on the floor.

Shun’s brain took a second to catch up to what he was seeing, and then he practically threw himself off of Takao, sitting several feet away from him. Takao sat up as well, staring wide-eyed at the captain while Shun was unable to look at either of them.

They were still breathing hard, sweat covering their faces and making both of their shirts stick to their chests where they’d been pressed together, and their hair in total disarray.

He opened his mouth, but then seemed to think better of it and instead just walked on through the gym and past them like they weren’t there. They waited for him to unlock the office, find whatever it was he’d come back for, and leave again.

Shun almost thought that was going to be it when he left again, pulling the door shut behind him, but as an afterthought the captain opened the door again, frowning deeply at them both, and Shun hoped they were only about to be scolded for being in the gym when they weren’t supposed to be, but instead he told them, “At least keep it out of the gym.”

He shot them one last offended look before shutting the door with a slam.

The awkward silence stretched on for as long as Shun could bear to keep from looking at Takao, but when he did and they exchanged a flustered glance between them, he let out a laugh before he could stop himself. He covered his mouth with his hand, but it was already too late to stop and the nervous giggles carried on until Takao couldn’t watch him any longer without also smiling.

“We should clean up,” he said when he’d pulled himself together a bit. “We’re not getting any more practice done.”

“Yeah,” Takao sighed heavily, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling. “Can we nap after? I’m beat.”

Shun hesitated to answer, not sure if Takao was implying what Shun thought he definitely was implying; that they’d nap together. _Together_ together. In one bed. Like how they slept at night after Takao climbed into Shun’s bed, except… it wouldn’t be late at night and in the dark or during a storm. Did they not even need to make excuses anymore? Was it fine for this to just be their normal? Did Takao like sharing a bed with him beyond it being an aid to easing his fear?

Did he like it as much as Shun did?

Takao only turned his head to look at him when he was quiet for too long, and Shun shoved down the Questions We Don’t Ask about the Things We Don’t Talk About as far as he could force them in favour of a well-practised neutral expression and a thoughtful nod. “A nap sounds great.”


	19. “We’re going to make out… care to join us?”

As determined as Takao had sounded about napping, he seemed to find a lot of ways to put it off. He insisted on going out for food first, and they spent far too much time wandering outside while trying to decide what to have only to settle on going into the next ramen place they came across. They made quick work of the impressive amount of dishes they ordered between them and a mess of themselves in their hurry to fill up.

Takao drained third drink and slammed the glass down just a little too hard before turning to Shun.

“We should get a movie,” he said, sounding decided rather than suggesting.

“What are you guys on a date or something?” Someone said behind them. Shun didn’t recognise him, but Takao apparently did.

“Yeah, why, you jealous?” He asked, not looking around as he shovelled the last few mouthfuls of food into his mouth. He didn’t bother to introduce them, so Shun stayed quiet.

“Totally,” the new guy said nonchalantly, taking a seat on the other side of Takao. “You got plans for summer?”

Takao looked at Shun, waiting until Shun began to wonder if Takao thought the question was meant for him instead – he didn’t even know the guy – before turning back to him. He shrugged and put down his bowl. “Dunno yet.”

When they left they made it barely across the road before someone else Shun didn’t recognise was calling and waving to Takao. She didn’t stop to talk to them, but Takao waved cheerily back. In the video store they spent more time stood in front of the till than browsing the shelves because the guy behind the counter, who Shun guessed had to be in one of Takao’s classes, recognised Takao and trapped him in conversation, basically ignoring Shun.

“Hey sorry we gotta run,” Takao said loudly, interrupting him in the middle of a long drawn out complaint about a lecture. He grabbed Shun by the wrist, and bolted from the store.

“Where you going?”

“We’re going to make out… care to join us?”

He laughed as the guy made a face and stuck up a middle finger at him.

“Do you not like him?” Shun asked once they were out. Takao’s hand remained loosely around Shun’s.

“Nah, he’s fine,” Takao shrugged, pulling Shun along so that he could buy snacks.

Even when several of the guys from their team passed them on their way back to their room, Shun got a friendly nod or greeting, where people were more enthusiastic to speak to Takao like there was no one around here that he hadn’t managed to become good friends with already – or at least comfortable acquaintances, Shun decided after learning that there were plenty of people who knew him who were almost nothing but _annoyed_ by him and his constant loud cheer, and somehow were still happy to have him around.

“Did you already live around here before you started college?” He asked when they finally shut their door behind them. Shun’s family didn’t live too far, but it was far enough that he couldn’t exactly take a bus and visit for the afternoon unless he didn’t plan on coming back that same day.

“Hmm? No, why?” Takao asked around a mouthful of sweets that he’d already started on. He tossed Shun the DVD they’d picked up.

Shun shook his head and after a pause Takao seemed to accept it as just curiosity. He supposed he could understand him being Shun’s friend on the basis that it would hardly be a special exception – especially considering they shared a room and basketball team – but he didn’t really get why someone like Takao would choose to spend _so much_ of their time with him when it seemed like he barely had to walk by someone twice before they loved him. He could probably have a lot more fun with some of the other friends he’d made, he could run off and decide to join a group of practical strangers and talk them round to accepting him anyway. Shun didn’t doubt that he had plenty of older friends here too.

“Where’s your laptop?” Takao asked, not waiting for a reply before he searched under Shun’s bed and dropped himself on top of the sheets, leaving room for Shun and grinning up at him expectantly.

Shun smiled back and kicked off his shoes before quickly joining him, sliding up next to him against his pillow until their shoulders were pressed together and Takao could balance the laptop between them on their legs. He would take as much as he was given without questioning it too much. He already had more than he’d hoped for.

They ate too many sweets, and Takao talked through too much of the movie, but as hyperactive as he seemed he also looked like he was going to crash before the end. His own eyes were getting heavier too.

“We could finish it later?” He offered.

“Mm-mm,” Takao shook his head. “I’m fi–”

Shun shorted, amused when Takao had to stop mid-word to yawn. He paused the movie, closed the computer, and then slid it back under his bed so they could finish it later.

“I wanted to see the end,” Takao pouted.

“You’re tired,” Shun said, moving to lie down more. “We can watch it later.”

“I’m not that tired,” he lied.

“ _I’m_ tired.”

Takao picked at the sheets, not looking at him.

“I thought you wanted a nap?”

“Yeah,” Takao shrugged and then nodded his head, looking back at his bed. “I guess I’ll… go back over there.”

Shun wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a question or not, but Takao’s reluctance to leave him even to the other side of the room made him warm. Before he could stop himself he asked, “You don’t want to?”

“I’m too tired to move.”

“I thought you weren’t _that_ tired?” He grinned.

Takao gave a pretty pathetic attempt at forcing a laugh, too tired to do more, and moved as though to get up from Shun’s bed until Shun pulled him back down.

“Just stay here,” he said, glad that his voice didn’t shake at all. “We’re already lying here and basically asleep anyway.”

Takao’s face brightened, and Shun had to close his eyes and turn away before he beamed back at him like an idiot. He felt Takao shift down so that he could put his head on the pillow behind Shun’s. It took him a while before he stopped wriggling, and then again when he decided he wasn’t quite comfortable yet.

Shun held in a sigh. Takao always wriggled when he was trying to get to sleep, but Shun was usually already asleep enough by the time it started that he just didn’t care.

He stopped for a minute. And then started again.

“You okay?” Shun asked.

“Uh, yeah. Sorry.” Takao tried to wriggle less, but it only ended up making him move slower, in smaller bits, and take longer. Mostly he just didn’t seem to know what to do with his arms, which explained a lot about the way Shun usually woke up enveloped in them.

He sat up, took off his hoodie so that he wouldn’t boil over completely, and grabbed Takao’s arms.

“You want me to…”

“Nope,” Shun said, not looking him in the face once so that he wouldn’t lose his nerve – or give them away – and lay back down, pulling Takao’s arms around him. “Better?”

“Uh, yeah,” Takao muttered, his voice already thick and croaky with sleep, “yeah.”

He wriggled a little more, but then stopped, tightening his arms around Shun just for a moment before he sighed against his shoulder. Shun thought he would fall asleep quickly after that, but a few minutes passed before he spoke again.

“Shun-chan…”

“Hm?” He almost tried to turn around to look at him, changing his mind before he did.

“What are you doing for summer break?”

Shun hesitated, wondering if he was _supposed_ to be doing something. He hadn’t really given it any thought at all. “I guess I’m just going to go back home. What are you doing?”

“Same,” he mumbled into Shun’s back, his arms tightening again, “I guess.”

Takao went quiet and Shun waited to see if there was more, knowing that he wasn’t asleep yet. When it seemed like that was all he’d wanted to say, Shun closed his eyes again and relaxed into it, waiting to sleep and brushing his thumb slowly over the arm around him.


	20. "Thank god I'm wearing gloves, because you're too hot to handle."

Shun was usually a light sleeper, usually waking early, but it wasn’t until the blinding sun was glaring through the window into his face that he was dragged from sleep the first day after they’d come back from a long training weekend after their first week of summer break. They hadn’t been the only team there either, so they’d played more games than Shun thought would have been physically possible in three days and now he was sore and aching all over. Including his eyes. _Especially_ his eyes. They’d won plenty of them though, which definitely made it feel worth it.

He wriggled a little, trying to turn around and put his back to the bright light, but Takao was curled so tightly around him that he couldn’t roll over without pushing him off. The hand pressing against his stomach under his shirt twitched slightly, just once, but didn’t leave him. Takao’s other arm was stretched out in front of Shun’s face from under his neck, and he tried pulling it over his eyes to block out the sun, but when he pulled it closer Takao only wrapped it around him, holding onto his shoulder and effectively trapping him there completely.

Shun put a hand on Takao’s arm, meaning to pry it back down to the bed, but after several long moments of trying to talk himself into it he only ended up leaving his hand there on it instead. Groaning quietly, he tried to pull the blanket over his face with his other hand, but the heat made it suffocating and he ended up throwing it off again. He could just wake Takao and tell him to move over, but that would take a lot more effort than he wanted to make right now. And okay, yeah, he also just didn’t want to. They’d spent the majority of the time away training apart, sleeping apart on separate futons, or playing in games.

Takao made a noise that might have been him speaking in his sleep, and Shun thought he heard his name, but whatever it was was too muffled in Shun’s hair for him to translate it into actual words. His arm tightened around Shun’s waist and his knees pressed closer behind him, pulling them even closer together.

So instead of fighting to get free Shun just tried to go back to sleep, shifting a little every now and then to try to get more comfortable. But every time he moved at all, Takao did too, wriggling like he wanted to somehow get closer even with absolutely no space between them already. He wriggled again. Takao wriggled again.

Sighing quietly to himself he tried to just close his eyes and wait to feel himself going under again. He concentrated on willing himself to ignore the stinging light and the sticky heat and the strong arms wrapped tightly around him and the soft breaths that puffed against the back of his neck and the way their legs were folded together and the warm hand that had slid ever so slightly further into his shirt and up his stomach and–

His eyes flew wide open.

He’d shifted again before he could help himself, and felt Takao press back. Hard.

 _Hard_.

Takao was hard.

What the hell was he supposed to do now?

He counted his breaths, trying to steady them and keep the rest of his body utterly still, face red and wishing he’d just gotten out of bed when the sun had clearly told him to. Maybe he should just wake Takao up?

Okay, this was fine really. It didn’t matter. What’s a bit of morning wood anyway; it’s not like it’s not perfectly normal. Maybe it was actually just incredibly lucky that in all the time they’d been sharing a bed this hadn’t already happened before now. He could just move himself forward a tiny bit and pretend nothing had happened.

The moment he moved Takao’s hand on his stomach pressed down as he pushed his hips up against him again, breathing a soft, open mouthed gasp against the back of Shun’s neck and making him bite his cheek against the panicked noise that almost escaped him. He definitely had to wake Takao up, but it was getting harder.

 _Ah, good one,_ he thought to himself, but then a second later, _Okay, no, probably not the best time for that._

But how was he supposed to just wake Takao up now without heinously embarrassing them both.

It really didn’t help that he was also hard now.

Takao’s hand on his stomach slid lower, and Shun reflexively covered it with his own, grabbing it and holding it still before it could go any farther. He held his breath and waited for Takao to wake up, but the fast movement wasn’t enough to jolt him out of it and he simply kept going, rocking himself against Shun’s behind and making small noises that made Shun feel like he was going to start yelling whether he wanted to or not. He resisted his body’s urge to press back into it.

He could feel Takao’s lips trembling against his skin as he moved just the tiniest bit faster and Shun felt himself ready to boil over.

He’d meant to shout and wake Takao, but all that he could manage at first was to make an odd distressed whimper that would have been more humiliating if his embarrassment wasn’t already at peak level, and when he did call Takao’s name it came out as less than a quiet, shaky croak that Takao obviously didn’t hear at all. He fought off his nerves again enough to yell louder, but just as he took in the breath to do it Takao’s phone rang and he didn’t need to because from the first note Takao sprang away from him like he’d been electrocuted and threw himself across the bed to pick up his phone, answering in a hoarse voice while Shun rolled onto his front and hid his face in the pillow, hoping that either that hid the fact that he was awake or restricted his oxygen enough that he really did pass out. He really didn’t care which.

“Yep, yeah, okay, okay yeah, got it, right, yes, bye!” Takao spoke quickly until the call disconnected, and then he sat there on the side of the bed for a few minutes, just breathing. Shun hoped he would move soon because he really didn’t feel like having to keep his face stuffed in the pillow for much longer and since the blanket had been thrown to the floor when Takao get up there was no way he was going to get up and face him like this. Eventually Takao whispered to himself, “I’m just… gonna go…”

Takao didn’t finish, instead he just got up from the bed and walked into the bathroom, shutting the door quietly behind him. After he heard the water running Shun slammed his face into the pillow a few times. And then once more for good measure before turning his face to stare at the bathroom door, taking long controlled breaths.

If it were different and they’d both been awake…

He didn’t think about it. Shoved it out of his mind ready to act like nothing had happened at all. Like he’d just woke up a moment ago.

When Takao had finished in the bathroom Shun was just rolling over to ask what time it was, or comment on how unusual it was for Takao to be up before him, or anything other than an almost insulted sounding, “You’re wet.”

Fortunately Takao just laughed at him while he pulled out clothes, like he’d said something stupid. Which, yeah, okay. “Yeah that happens sometimes when you take a shower. You gotta get ready; we’re all going to the beach!”

“…All _who_?”

*

Forty minutes later and they were crammed into _someone’s_ car, though Shun had no idea who the driver was. Someone from the softball team he was sure Takao had said, but he didn’t remember their name. There were a few of the guys from basketball in the car behind them, but Shun couldn’t turn around to see since he’d ended up standing in the wrong place to wait and getting forcefully pushed down onto the passenger seat with a rough “Congrats, you get shotgun,” which was immediately followed by having two heavy coolers dumped on his lap and a bag of assorted balls packed in under his feet.

Takao had piled into the back with too many others and they were on their way, being told to “Keep your heads down, assholes!” Which, of course, no paid the slightest bit of attention to whatsoever. They stuck to the backroads and avoided any early traffic, and while the other passengers in the car fooled around, Takao was leaning around the back of Shun’s seat to talk to him. With the noise of everyone else in the car yelling and laughing loudly over the top of each other they couldn’t really hear each other at all, so Takao settled on just grinning at him, on hand on Shun’s shoulder for the entire short journey.

They left the car on the cliffside road at the top of a flight of wide stone steps leading down to a bay. Half way down the cliff turned to a grassy bank where there was a beach house at the bottom looking over the sand and rocky pools. The sun wasn’t quite high enough yet to be warm enough to go in the water, but there was already a lot of noise and people down there. There was music coming from somewhere, but Shun couldn’t figure out where from at that distance.

“It says it’s private,” he said, pointing to a sign by the top step. “Are we allowed?”

“Who did you think was throwing the party?” They laughed as they made their way down in a hurry.

He looked at Takao, who shrugged and smiled warmly at him, offering his hand like it was just something they normally did. It was too easy to smile back and take it, following Takao’s lead and running down the steps in long leaps to the beach.

There were a lot of people from different sport teams there, so there were of course a lot of arguments as to what they’d play first. Shun didn’t take part and instead walked across the shoreline with Takao and helped him to gather up enough stones and seashells, which Takao then used to painstakingly write both their names in the sand as large as he could.

“This way it can’t get washed away!” He explained brightly when he’d finished, brushing the sand off his hands on his shorts.

They watched as people played volleyball, cursing the sand for making it so much harder, and got up eagerly when they were invited to play the next game.

“Not together,” someone said, acting as referee and grabbing them by the shoulders to yank them apart, separating them to opposite sides of the ‘net’ – which was nothing more than a line of sticks in the sand. “Break up the dream team and give both sides a chance.”

Smirking at that, Takao winked at Shun as he took position facing Shun. “I guess we’re too much for them. Looks like we’re competing again.”

“Are we ever not?”

Takao laughed. “Want me to be gentle and go easy on you?”

“You better not,” Shun tried to glare, but his lips pulled into a smile anyway.

“Alright, enough flirting,” someone else yelled, “shut up and play!”

Shun had never really played a lot of volleyball, but as much as he loved basketball it was a nice change. Something just for fun that, despite their quips, there was no real pressure to win. Not that they didn’t make it look that way.

The sand really did make it a lot more difficult – and it didn’t help that they were still only running at half power, just barely a full day back from training – but the challenge just made it all the more enjoyable, and the temporary change of game was refreshing enough to give him an invigorated boost. They were pretty well matched in speed and skill, though Takao was better at serving and Shun surpassed him at receives. As well as they read the moves of the others playing, they read each other so well by now they might as well be reading each other’s minds and had to switch to feints to get anything through.

Shun could have laughed. All these months of extra practice learning to fight together, of learning to communicate their intentions in barely a slice of a moment under pressure and without a word, and it came as easy as breathing now.

Takao’s team won, but Shun hardly cared. They were both spent by the end of the short game, Shun trying to rub the sting from his ill-treated eyes, impressed that he’d managed to use his eagle eye vision at all today after the games he’d played the past few days. They collapsed down close to where Takao had written their names in shells, pulling off their shoes and socks to shake the sand from them.

“We really should have brought spare clothes,” Takao said, chuckling as Shun flopped backwards and stretched out his legs into the water, not caring that the sand was wet here. He followed suit and they lay quiet for a while, the backs of their hands resting lightly together between them, letting the waves wash over their feet and watching the clouds while the sun crawled over the sky above them.

Shun supposed the noise should bother him – the music, the screaming, the laughing, the yelling – but none of it seemed able to break the tranquillity he felt right there.

He felt Takao raise a finger, brushing it softly over his like he wanted to get his attention for something but was just too tired to move properly. He turned his head, waiting for Takao to say something, but before Takao would even look at him someone ran closer and called out to him, and then Takao sat up, and his hand was gone from Shun’s.

“We’re playing soccer and we need more players,” he said. “You guys in?”

Takao looked questioningly at Shun. He almost said yes, seeing that Takao wanted to go, but changed his mind and shook his head.

“You go though,” he said, also sitting himself up.

“Are you gonna miss me while I’m gone?” Takao asked, putting on a fake sad voice.

“It’ll be like I can’t breathe,” Shun replied flatly, throwing sand into Takao’s hair to distract him from seeing the hint of truth in it. After tonight they would be leaving to go home for most of the summer, and he wouldn’t see Takao until they both came back.

“You two are fucking weird sometimes, you know that?” The other boy said, his face twisted disapprovingly. He rolled his eyes at their blank stares and pointed farther up the beach where someone had set up what appeared to be a makeshift barbeque. “If you’re not playing you can help with the food.”

So Shun found himself standing alone over a handful of slowly cooking burgers after being aggressively warned not to burn it and then left with nothing but a tiny pair of ice tongs to turn it with. At least he was given gloves so that his hands wouldn’t burn, and months of work in awful costumes had left him unable to care less how stupid he looked in them so long as his fingers didn’t cook along with the meat.

Plus, he had plenty of spare time between flipping food over and a nice spot to watch Takao play with his shirt off.

As jealous as he felt seeing Takao with others, it was a different kind of jealous now. So what if Takao wanted to do things with his other friends? Shun did miss him – he missed him even when he was right there in front of him, playing soccer with people Shun most likely would never have even spoken to if it weren’t for Takao, like every inch of distance caused the ache to deepen – but how could he hate it when none of them would get what he got.

It was a new kind of pain, a nice one, feeling his heart bursting because when Takao said “You’re my best friend” Shun believed him. Entirely. It was a foreign and intoxicating thing to him to feel so secure with someone, to know that he would absolutely be put first if he asked for his time.

Takao, looking sullen and dejected, stomped through the sand over to him after they finished playing, dragging his t-shirt behind him and letting it trail across the ground.

“Half the soccer team is here and they were _all_ on the other team,” Shun pointed out when he sat pouting without a word and sighed heavily. Twice.

“I know,” he sighed. “I still don’t like losing, you need to console me.”

“I think some of this food is ready?” Shun said, hoping to distract him.

“You _think_?” Takao grinned up at him.

“I mean, I’m pretty sure? I’ve never exactly been in charge of a barbeque before,” he admitted, prodding at the food a little.

Takao laughed, jumping to his feet again. He pulled his shirt on and reached out, “I suppose I’ll just have to test it for you. I’m starving!”

He stole a sausage, but before it could get to his mouth he yelped and let go. Shun, seeing that he was about to throw it the moment it burned, managed to catch it and drop it onto a paper plate.

“Thank god I’m wearing gloves,” Shun said while he held out the plate, “because you’re too hot to handle.”

Takao blew on his fingers but frowned at Shun. “Are you aiming that line at me or the sausage?”

Shun shrugged, barely holding back a grin. “What’s the difference?”

“Hey!” Takao snatched the plate, but a second later he had that glimmer in his eyes. “You know, to make up for that, you should kiss it better for me.”

“Okay.”

Well, he really hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but he had to roll with it now.

Takao stilled for a moment, like someone had hit the pause button on him. “What?”

“You think I won’t?” Shun shrugged again, keeping his façade calm while on the inside he was screaming at himself to shut up. The ache he’d feel after wasn’t worth winning a dumb game of chicken over.

Takao narrowed his eyes at him, seeing the challenge. “Okay, fine.”

“Fine.”

“Do it.”

“I will.”

“Go on then.”

“Okay! Give me your hand then. I’ll do it.”

Takao’s hand twitched and it took him another second or two before he held it out, his fingers inches from Shun’s face, and waited, looking like he thought he’d already won.

Shun bit his lips together to stop himself from wetting them. “So, uh… which ones were hurt?”

“All of them,” he said smugly. “You gonna kiss every one of them better?”

Shun lifted a hand slowly, forcing himself to not break eye contact as he took hold of Takao’s wrist, but the moment they touched, someone else grabbed his arm and moved him out of the way.

“Not over _my_ food, you’re not,” he said, stepping between them to help himself to the meat and not flinching at the heat.

Takao’s hand dropped and they exchanged an awkward but amused look while they waited for him to step away again, calling out to the whole beach that there was food now.

“I mean,” Takao folded his arms, glaring after him, “I didn’t really get hurt either. It’s not that impressive.”

Shun raised his eyebrows and teased. “If all you wanted was a kiss, you could have just said so.”

“Shut up,” he said, turning red. “He just has inhuman heat resistance or something. Listen, anyone else would have reacted the same way.”

Shun ended up serving the food out to people so that no one else would burn themselves. Takao stayed beside him, letting Shun put extra on his plate for himself and forcing him into a snapchat selfie while his hands were full.

“That is blatant favouritism,” one girl said, pointing at the plate and only half joking.

Shun schooled his face, looked her right in the eye, and without lowering his voice calmly said, “It’s because I have a massive crush on him.” Takao started coughing and spluttering right beside him, but Shun didn’t turn away to look at him. “But don’t tell him, okay?”

She laughed, and Shun pretended like his heart wasn’t thudding more violently in his chest now than it had when they were playing volleyball.

He took off the gloves and offered them to her. “I’ll just _hand_ these over, and you can get what you want.”

She looked at him a little weirdly – and then at Takao who’d doubled over laughing and started choking on his food again – but took them anyway, and Shun walked off with Takao to find somewhere to sit, thumping him on the back until he calmed down again.

They were offered drinks, which they accepted at first, but after quickly finishing that one revolting bottle, Shun had to politely refuse any other offers. Instead, they wandered over to the rocky ledge farther down the beach out of the way of the party, choosing a spot where the rock jutted out like a peer over the water, high enough that their feet dangling over the edge didn’t quite touch the surface.

Shun leaned back, propped up by his hands, watching the birds circling around each other in the almost cloudless sky and appreciating the peace and the breeze on his skin and in his hair, though it was still warm and carried the briny smell of the sea. Not that he wasn’t having fun, but it was a relief to take a break from the noise and people and running around to just sit here with Takao and _breathe_.

He heard the camera shutter clicking from beside him and looked at Takao, finding the phone pointed at him and Takao still staring at the screen at whatever photo he’d just taken. It didn’t seem like Takao had even noticed that he’d caught him taking it. He took out his own phone, capturing the soft smile, and then the ‘deer in the headlights’ expression when he looked up and realised Shun was taking a picture of him.

“Smile,” he said, laughing when Takao stuck out his tongue. He took that picture too.

“I can’t believe no one thought to bring ice cream,” Takao sighed. Shun didn’t bother to mention that they could have brought some themselves since they hadn’t had to provide anything else. “How long did you get?”

It took him a second to process the sudden change in topic before he could reply, “Four weeks. With a lot of begging and promising favours.”

He hadn’t wanted to lose his job to be able to go home for the summer, so he’d had to work something out for as much time as he could get, tremendously thankful that they were so lenient. Takao’s face twisted unhappily and Shun had to resist the urge to reach out and try to smooth it out again with his fingers.

“You’ll be home anyway, won’t you?” He asked. “How long until you come back?”

“Four weeks I guess.” Shun tilted his head, and Takao knew the question before he had to ask it. “Well,” he shrugged, muttering, “I might as well come back when you do.”

Shun was already beaming gladly by the time he even thought to control it, and Takao looked away, pink but smiling. He sighed. “A whole month…” He swung his leg, bumping it into Shun’s and leaving them pressed together at the knees. “You better not be about to miss any good uniforms.”

Shun scoffed at that. “As if there are ever any _actual_ good ones there.”

“Hmm, I dunno,” Takao raised his eyebrows and his phone again. “Let’s take a look.”

“Let’s not,” Shun said, laughing as Takao let him lean closer to snatch the phone from him, only to move it further away to the other side of him. Shun reached out again, leaning past him so that Takao had to lean back a little, stretching his arm out and smirking at him.

He didn’t try to make a grab for it again, but he didn’t move back away from him either. He saw moment it dawned on Takao how close their faces were, his eyes darting around Shun’s face like he didn’t know where to rest them. Slowly, without taking his eyes from Takao’s, he leaned just a little farther until his fingertips brushed Takao’s hand, and he gently took the phone.

Takao didn’t stop him. He didn’t look as though he’d stop Shun doing anything right now. But he also looked about ready to start freaking out, so Shun had to ruin it himself.

“You always go this red so easily,” he whispered, “or is that just for me?”

He waited a beat for it to sink in, and then Takao’s expression morphed into a mock-affronted glare and he shoved at him hard enough that Shun almost fell over the side, but just barely caught himself. “Unacceptable! You can’t just use _my_ lines on me, you thief!”

Laughing, Shun shoved back. “That would have been both our phones!”

Takao didn’t catch himself in time and tipped from the ledge into the sea with a cry. Shun would have stopped laughing and felt concerned for him if he didn’t re-emerge from the water immediately to grab at his leg and try to pull him down.

He kicked off his hands and scrambled backwards, standing up to grin down at him, but was greeted by a shoe flying through the air at him, spinning and spraying water around. It missed, so Takao threw the second, but when that one missed too Shun wondered if he was even trying. With an aim that good even a soaked shoe shouldn’t be that much of a challenge for him.

“How’s the water?” He asked smugly.

The balled up socks did hit him. Right on the cheek with a splat.

 “It’s great,” he didn’t think he’d ever seen Takao give him such an angry smile before. “You should join me.”

“I’ll pass, thanks.”

“Come _on_.”

“No.”

“I dare you!”

Shun chuckled, wiping away the water from his cheek with the bottom of his shirt. He wasn’t taking any bait that weak.

“You really too chicken to get a bit wet?”

“I’m not getting in,” he said, determined to hold no matter how much Takao taunted him.

Takao hummed, glancing away down to the beach. When he looked back Shun expected some line or quip about him being afraid, but he didn’t say anything at all. He just smiled and tilted his head at him, watching.

Shun watched him back, eyebrows raised. It wasn’t even a good effort. He wasn’t budging from this rock.

Takao’s smile grew wider.

Shun sighed heavily at himself, his shoulders sagging before he shook his head and started taking off his own socks and shoes. He left them with their phones, a little apart from Takao’s drenched shoes, and then pulled his shirt over his head and dropped that too.

The water was colder than he expected when he jumped in.

“Nice, isn’t it,” Takao said, cackling at Shun’s shocked gasp.

He ignored that in favour of splashing him in the face, starting a fight before swimming away, knowing that Takao would follow to retaliate. Shun was a faster and stronger swimmer than Takao, a fact that he was sure would have frustrated Takao if it were a real race.

Each time he swam away he moved slow enough to let Takao catch up before grabbing him by the shoulders or head to dunk him under, backing away again just as he resurfaced until they were just circling each other and hitting out at the water like kids.

The splashing towards Shun suddenly stopped, and he caught sight of Takao’s hair disappearing under the water, his only warning before there were arms around his middle dragging him down too. He sucked in a breath and didn’t struggle, spreading his arms to tread water instead of escaping.

Opening their eyes despite the way the water made them sting, they watched each other through the clouded water to see who would give in and rise first. They floated closer, and Shun reached out to hold his shoulder like somehow that might make it easier to stay down there with him. His lungs felt about ready to tear open by the time Takao grabbed his hand and started swimming up. He followed, both of them breaking the surface gasping and shaking, too tired to do anything but hold on to each other and catch their breath, drifting under the jetty-like boulder until Shun was backed against the rocks where it was shallow enough that his toes could touch the sand and they were sheltered from the sun.

Takao rested his head on Shun’s shoulder, his arms back around Shun’s middle, just breathing. Shun didn’t have the energy in him to speak so he just wrapped his arms over Takao’s shoulders, fists gripping tightly onto his shirt and lulled by the waves rocking against them until they were both shivering.

Shun half tugged at Takao’s shirt, half tapped him with a fist, getting his attention so that he’d look up at him. His teeth chattered when he tried to speak, making them both laugh.

“Time to move?” Takao asked, pressing his forehead to Shun’s.

He didn’t have time to reply before they heard screaming overhead and several loud splashes as people hit the water. They parted, looking back out to them. Shun realised they hadn’t been noticed and Takao seemed to have figured this out at the same time.

“Come on,” Takao grinned at him, deliberately slipping lower in the water again. “Let’s give them one good scare before we dry off.”

*

Somehow they’d ended up more drained than they had been after the training weekend; sitting at the back of the mostly empty bus, Takao’s head on Shun’s shoulder and Shun’s head on his. Neither of them were sleeping yet, but they were too beat to pretend to be more awake.

Takao’s shirt and shoes were still a little damp, but they’d dried them in the sun as best they could before leaving what looked like it was going to turn into an all-night party so they could get back and get a decent night’s sleep for their last night.

Takao’s eyes had fallen closed as soon as the bus began moving, but a minute or two later he’d slid his hand into Shun’s on top of their legs, linking their fingers together and muttering to him to tell him when they were almost there.

Shun watched the sun crawling lower through the window over Takao’s head, smiling into his hair.


	21. “Can I put you on my to do list?”

The weirdest part was saying goodbye; feeling like it should have been more than a muttered “Okay, well… see you in a few weeks,” while he hovered in the doorway with his bag before he left to meet his ride, and at the same time afraid that if he tried to say more then he’d only be the idiot making it out to be something bigger than what it was. It was just a few weeks apart for break. He’d already had five of them for the long weekend with the team and the day at the beach and would be back in twenty-three days. It didn’t exactly require a heartfelt farewell.

Takao didn’t even say anything at first. He’d been sitting on the desk quietly watching Shun pack for most of the morning, and his only reply was to take a few steps closer but then stop when he was just half way across the room, stuff his hands in his pockets, and give him a nod and a small smile.

It was probably weird that walking away felt more awkward than waking up in each other’s arms, but he was also sure that if he let himself say what he felt – that as much as he missed home and his family, now that it was time to go he kind of didn’t want to – he’d only make it harder on himself.

He left, shutting the door behind him, but Takao yanked it back open before it clicked shut and glaring at him.

“You better not forget to call me!” He said, throwing his arms around Shun in a tight hug before backing off again and quickly returning to their room, leaving Shun alone out in the hallway before he could say anything.

Shun arrived at the side of the road where they’d agreed to meet just in time for his older sister to pull up. He got into the car, chucking his bag onto the backseat and letting out a slow breath after he’d shut the door and pulled on his seatbelt. At her cheerful greeting he tried to smile, his lips pulling into a thin line.

“Well, you look enthusiastic,” Aya told him, raising an eyebrow.

“Just tired,” he said, giving her a more genuine smile. He _was_ happy to be finally going to see his family.

The journey went by in a blur in the hours it took to get there. He answered her occasional questions about his classes and basketball, but mostly he let her do all the talking until they arrived home where his mother was waiting by the door to make a fuss over him like she hadn’t seen him in years instead of the few months it had been.

She grabbed him by the shoulders to take a look at him, insisting he’d grown even though Shun was almost certain he hadn’t grown an inch in at least three years. He let her take his bag from him and lead him into the house when she insisted he unpack before dinner. Though as he expected she would, she did the unpacking for him herself, shaking her head at how messily done his packing was.

He spent half of dinner glancing down at his phone, trying to decide whether it was too soon to assume Takao was home yet or if he should just wait until tomorrow. In the end he figured that if Takao had wanted to talk to him tonight he would have done it already. He’d talk to him in the morning instead.

“You’re quiet.”

He shook his head, again saying, “Just tired. It was a busy weekend.” When they continued staring at him in concern he excused himself, heading to bed early and hoping a good night’s sleep would help.

In his bed however, he wasn’t able to fall asleep so easily. Everything felt too different. Different mattress, different blanket, different pillows, different surroundings, and the oddly cold and exposed feeling of having the freedom to move around without Takao lying next to him hogging most of his bed and personal space.

Waking up the next day was even harder than falling asleep. For a second he wasn’t sure where he was, so used to waking up to the sight of their dorm room, and almost started looking for Takao, wondering where he was before he sat up and remembered that his arm wasn’t around him because he wasn’t there.

He didn’t get up as early as he’d intended to, but he was still pretty sure he was too early to think about calling Takao yet. There was breakfast being put out for him when he shuffled downstairs, rubbing his eyes.

“Still tired?” His mom asked, looking sympathetic. “Is college really taking that much out of you? Maybe you should drop basketball if it’s too much…”

Shun shook his head, yawning.

“Did you have a rough night?”

He jerked one shoulder in a half shrug, too groggy to answer at first and sat down at the breakfast table next to his younger sister, Mai, as his mother placed a plate down for him. “It’s just weird being back in my old bed. Got to get used to sleeping alone again.”

It was so good to have a proper breakfast that he had wolfed half of it down and chased it with a cup of lukewarm coffee before he noticed that they were staring at him. He looked around the room at them, trying to figure out what he’d done.

“Who are you sleeping with?”

Startled, he could only blink at them, asking, “Uh… what?”

“You said you’re not used to sleeping alone,” his mother prompted with almost frantic interest. “So who–?”

“Oh,” He flushed, mentally cursing himself. “I-I didn’t mean it like that. I meant… alone in the room. Because I’m used to having my roommate. In the room. With me, I mean. Not. Uh.”

He could have sworn Aya was sliding closer along the table top in her bid for gossip, but a moment later she sighed and returned her attention to her breakfast like he’d disappointed her. Shun did the same, shovelling food into his mouth so that he wouldn’t speak anymore.

He was just taking his plate away when his phone buzzed on the table where he’d left it and he saw his little sister hanging over it, staring at the screen.

“Who is Takao Ka–” she stopped when he hurried back and snatched the phone out from under her.

“My roommate,” he said, making a quick escape to his room before anyone could ask him anything else.

It wasn’t a call though, just a message. He read it as he shut his door behind him.

_“forgot about me already?”_

_“I didn’t think you would be awake yet”_

_“in THIS house? lol”_

Shun wasn’t really sure what that was supposed to mean. He dropped onto his bed, biting his lip and hesitating over what to say until he just took a deep breath and hit ‘call’.

*

He spent more time on his phone than off it. Takao had all but forced him to get snapchat on his phone and while he didn’t entirely get the necessity of sending a photo with every message he wasn’t in the slightest opposed to receiving an image of Takao’s face with almost everything he had to say, and had obediently downloaded the app. He had so far not found the nerve to send one of himself back and his occasional replies contained pictures of literally anything else he could find to take a photo of instead. After trying and failing to find a record of any received messages he’d asked Mai how to find them, rather than ask Takao who surely would know that the only pictures he’d had to want to look at were of himself. She’d simply told him that there was no record and that he would have to screenshot them, so he’d started doing that with every one of them he received.

Takao sent pick up lines accompanied by photos of him winking, blowing kisses, or otherwise pulling the most ridiculous face he could and making Shun laugh. He tried to leave the room to open them whenever he could if he was with his family, or at least remember to keep his face straight when he opened them; he didn’t need any more weird questions after they had all, at least one time each, asked him, “Are you texting a girl?”

They spoke on the phone less often, but often enough that Aya had started giving him odd looks for shutting himself in his room, though he didn’t have to worry about anyone trying to listen in; even if they would try, the majority of any phone call was spent by Takao chattering endlessly about anything and everything while Shun just lay back on his bed and enjoyed the sound of his voice. He smiled up at the ceiling, knowing he was ridiculous but not even caring. He was too far gone now and there was no one there to see it to call him out on it.

He made sure to practice a lot, but he hadn’t had to practice alone for so long. It felt lonely without Takao there. Everything did.

Not that he was entirely alone the whole time; one of his old teammates who’d moved away after high school was back for a few days and had stopped by while Shun was out practicing in his front yard with the old standing hoop his parents kept in the garage, asking if he’d like company.

“I thought you couldn’t play anymore?” He asked, eyeing Kiyoshi’s knee.

“Well, it’s not like I’ll ever play professionally,” he smiled, ever the optimist. “But a little one-on-one for old times won’t do any harm.”

So they played, and Shun used every new skill he’d acquired – more to show off how much he had improved than to beat him. Kiyoshi had always been the best player on their team, but he’d been hurt badly in a game in their first year of high school and although he was still their ace until the end, his physical ability hadn’t quite been the same since. Shun saw every wince, every tremor in his leg, every time his footing was just slightly off because the old injury tested his threshold just that little bit too far.

“It’s worse now,” Shun said, stopping the ball and the game. When Kiyoshi looked at him blankly he asked, “Does it hurt more than it did back then?”

Kiyoshi raised his eyebrows in surprise. “It’s actually better since the last time we played. I’ve recovered a lot.”

“I can see every time it bothers you,” he said doubtfully.

Kiyoshi only laughed, but Shun saw the way he shifted, the way his muscles tensed ever so slightly as he prepared to leap forward and steal the ball. Shun felt his body reacting before Kiyoshi had even begun the attempt, moving it out of his reach fast enough that by the time his hand was where the ball had been, Shun was already shooting at the hoop.

“Maybe you’re just more observant than you were then,” Kiyoshi suggested, staring wide-eyed at the ball bouncing to a stop on the drive. He gave Shun a good-natured smile. “And faster.”

His phone buzzed from where he’d left it on the doorstep, and he left Kiyoshi to get the ball so that he could answer it. He opened snapchat to find a picture of Takao standing shirtless in front of a mirror with a wry smile on his face and green paint in his hair, on his chin and cheek, and speckling one shoulder a little. In the hand not holding his phone he held up a t-shirt that had undoubtedly started the day a lot less brightly coloured than it was now.

“ _babysitting doesnt pay nearly enough_ ”

Shun laughed at the caption and took a screenshot of the image.

“Who is that?” Shun jumped when he heard Kiyoshi so close behind him, looking over his shoulder at the photo before it disappeared. “I think I recognised him from somewhere.”

“Just my roommate,” he said, torn between quickly changing the subject and finding out how Kiyoshi knew him.

“ _Just_ your roommate? He sent you a shirtless snap.”

“He’s… kind of just like that?”

“He just casually sends people half naked pictures of himself?”

Shun would have loved to jump to Takao’s defence, but it wasn’t exactly the first one he’d gotten like that, and was it _really_ necessary for him to have his shirt off to show him the paint that was… on the shirt…

And he didn’t know that Takao might have sent anything like that to anyone else. Maybe he didn’t. Shun had never seen him send anything like that when they were back at college.

Maybe that was wishful thinking and Takao was just as relaxed about that as he seemed. He’d never exactly been shy about his body. Understandably.

Kiyoshi raised an eyebrow. “You screenshotted it.”

“Habit,” he mumbled, moving away to retrieve the ball himself so that he wouldn’t see his face reddening. Kiyoshi wasn’t even teasing him. He’d accepted his feeling, accepted that they wouldn’t be seriously returned, and accepted that he would just have to live with it. He could joke about it, even to people who didn’t know about the game, that was how he coped. Sincerity made it not a joke or something he could make playful one-liners at to convince himself that it wasn’t so bad when it hurt.

“Are you going to send one back?” It wasn’t pushy, just mildly curious, but Shun still hadn’t sent one of himself back at all so far, and if Takao could send shirtless selfies surely he could at least include his face in a reply. It was about time probably.

He tried to take it quickly, not wanting to look as though he was fussing over it when he was already feeling called out enough. Just a shot of him smiling, and he checked Kiyoshi wasn’t reading over his shoulder again before adding, “ _It’s a good look on you._ ”

After it sent he would have put his phone down and got on with practice if it weren’t for the notification staring up at him and making him feel oddly anxious.

“Does it always do that?” He asked cautiously, showing Kiyoshi his phone.

Kiyoshi glanced back down at the screen and shrugged. “Hm? Yeah. You didn’t know?” He looked back up with concern at the barely masked distress on Shun’s face and asked, “How many of his did you screenshot?”

“A few,” he admitted, containing a groan. _Almost all of them._

He got a response from Takao – an image of him pulling a fake shocked look, captioned with, “ _showing that pretty face for me today?? im honoured_ ” And he laughed despite the horror of just having learned that Takao was notified of every single screenshot Shun had taken of him over the summer. He almost didn’t screenshot this one, but gave in at the last second and caught it before it was gone forever. There was a second one right after that made him burn to screenshot, especially with Kiyoshi watching again.

“‘Washing the day’s fun away…’” Kiyoshi read out. Shun wanted to hide it from him. “Is he winking at you from in the shower?”

“It’s just…” How exactly was he supposed to explain ‘it’s just this game we play’ without making it sound even weirder than it really was? Though shower selfies weren’t a step he ever would have expected Takao would take to get points, even if there was shampoo foaming in his hair and green paint running down his face. At least this one went no lower than his chest. Showering together with someone after practice and receiving a photo of them showering were… very different things.

Then there was a third, and Shun was a little wary of opening it right there, but it was tamer than the others. Just a head and shoulders shot with a flower crown filter captioned, “ _out late?_ ”

He firmly ignored the supposed-to-be-subtle look Kiyoshi gave him when he screenshot that one too and held up the phone to take another picture, holding up the ball in his other hand and giving Kiyoshi behind him a moment to smile and raise a hand in a friendly greeting. He didn’t bother with a caption, knowing the basketball in his hand would explain it.

Takao didn’t screenshot that one, and he didn’t send one back, so Shun assumed he was finally concentrating on his shower. He threw the ball to Kiyoshi, aiming to concentrate on anything _but_ Takao in the shower.

He’d still received nothing new from Takao by the time Kiyoshi had left and he’d taken his own shower. It was possible he had just gone to sleep, but Shun knew him better than to believe that. He picked up the phone and held it up over his head where he lay on his pillow, his other arm thrown over his head in the most relaxed pose he could manage while hide how utterly unrelaxed he was about this.

“ _Goodnight x_ ”

There was no point in letting himself hesitate, because really how much worse could it be than anything either of them had already done. It’s not like he didn’t have a very good excuse. He just hoped Takao was still keeping score because at this point he’d lost count, more interested in the thrill of making Takao react than beating him at it.

He watched his phone for a little while longer, but Takao still never sent anything in reply. He did, however, screenshot the picture.

*

It was entirely by accident that Shun managed to video call him for the first time, only figuring out what was happening when it was too late because Takao had answered the call looking delighted and he didn’t have the heart to tell him it was a mistake and hang up. He’d had to make the call short though since he was out at the park playing some streetball with Kiyoshi and a few others he’d known from high school, but then he’d called back later when he was home again.

After that it became part of their routine each night – Shun sitting cross-legged on his bed with his laptop, while Takao usually wandered around with his earphones in and his phone held out in front of him, apparently struggling to stay still even to just talk. Usually. But sometimes, after a long day or a late practice or whatever else it was that Takao did that managed to wear him out, he’d prop his phone up in front of him and curl up on a chair.

There were only a few days left until they’d both be going back to college, back to their room together, and Shun was trying not to smile like an idiot at his laptop screen where Takao was recounting his every detail of his day. He sat with his knees tucked up to his chest, arms folded around them and his chin resting on his arms, his hair falling into his sleepy eyes. He was also wearing one of Shun’s hoodies again, though Shun was almost certain it should be too warm for it.

“It’s almost enough to make me miss class,” he said, finishing off a list of complaints that he’d felt the need to go through. A couple of screaming voices made him pause. “I do kinda miss the quiet.”

Shun laughed; there was rarely ever any quiet in the same place as Takao, but he supposed it made sense that any younger relatives of his would be even noisier. He’d never seen Takao’s sister, or anyone else in his family – though he’d heard Takao’s mother yelling to him from across the house several times – all he did know about her was that she was in middle school, and that she and her friends were as loud as her brother was.

He heard the distant yelling from Takao’s mother now; telling the girls to quiet down because it was late, and asking Takao if he’d finished cleaning out the garage yet.

He called back that he had, and then turned back to the camera to tell Shun, “I definitely miss not having chores.”

Shun gave him a sympathetic smile, and Takao smiled back, tilting his head to rest a cheek on his arm.

“I miss – uh,” Shun tried to speak up through the quiet. He wanted to say it. He wanted to just spit it out and admit it – get it off his chest – but in the last second his mouth let him down. “I miss practice.”

“Really? Coach breathing down our necks and Captain Drill Sargent basically expecting us to sprout wings if that’s what it takes to score a point?” Takao’s grin turned a little sour then, although Shun was sure he wouldn’t have noticed at all if he’d been almost anyone else. “Besides, seems like you’ve been doing plenty of practice with your other friends. I mean, you’ve known them a long time it must be more fun playing with them and –”

Takao went off on a small rant, not once looking at the phone where Shun couldn’t help grinning at him.

“Takao,” he said quietly.

“– and I… huh? What?” Takao halted midsentence to look at him finally.

“I meant with you.”

“…Oh,” Takao fell silent, staring down to inspect what appeared to be imaginary bobbles on the sleeve of the hoodie. Shun would have sworn he was blushing, but the dim lighting where he sat made it hard to tell.

“Takao,” he said again, grinning widely, “are you jealous?”

For a moment he thought Takao was going to argue or deny it, but he only laughed at himself and shrugged, saying, “That they get to spend time with my best friend and I don’t? Yeah, I guess I am. It’s just a little weird. You’re always _right there_ and now you’re not, you know?”

“Yeah,” Shun agreed, and he supposed that was as close as they were going to get to saying it for now. In an attempt to change the subject before they fell into an awkward silence, he said, “We’re going to have so much we have to do when we get back.”

Eyes glittering with sudden inspiration, Takao asked, “Hey, Shun-chan, can I put you on my to-do list?”

Shun let out a short laugh. “Well, I’m not gonna say no,” he said, holding back another laugh when Takao’s smirk dropped away to shock, “but if you’re planning on doing me like you do everything else on that list,” he looked pointedly behind Takao, “then I’m only going to end up disappointed and unsatisfied.”

Takao winced, turning around on his seat to look at the pile of undone homework he’d left out on his bed. He turned back to the camera, scowling. “I guess I could do _some_ of that.”

*

Shun had barely had time to put down his bag and take off his jacket before the door behind him burst open and something heavy landed on his back and wrapped around him, almost pitching them both to the floor. He regained his balance and sighed quietly at the odd mixture of physical relief and tension that came with the familiar hug, and opened his bag to unpack.

Takao rested his chin on Shun’s shoulders, his arms still wrapped around his middle. “Did you miss me?”

“Actually,” Shun said, looking only down at the bag so that he wouldn’t turn and look directly at Takao’s eyes or mouth this close to his face, “it was nice and peaceful.”

Takao squeezed tighter, burying his face in Shun’s neck. “Just shut up and tell me you missed me.”

Shun laughed, gripping the perfectly folded clothes in his hands tighter so that they wouldn’t shake so much. He just wanted to turn around and return the hug, but he was afraid he’d do something stupid like kiss him or never let go if he did. “I cried myself to sleep every night.”

“Good,” Takao said, releasing him and dropping himself down onto his bed.

“Aren’t you going to unpack?” Shun asked, looking around for Takao’s bag. He frowned when he didn’t see it.

“Already done,” he said. “I got back this morning.”

Shun looked back at him in surprise. It was still early afternoon; Takao must have come back very early to have already unpacked and put his things away. “Eager to get back to me?”

“Desperate,” Takao grinned. “Are we gonna play?”

Shun paused, still holding a pile of folded clothes ready to put away. He dropped them a second later, abandoning the bag spilling open on his bed to leave in a hurry with Takao.

Practice was more tiring that usual after a month away, but that didn’t stop them from staying twice as long as usual, stopping only when their legs were shaking and their stomachs were complaining loudly. They stopped by a maji burger and ordered too much food – which Takao insisted on paying for, claiming that Shun had bought him enough drinks from work by now that he kind of owed it.

Shun accepted, but said, “If you wanted to take me on a date all you had to do was ask,” which earned him a handful of fries thrown in his face. And then more again when he added, “And you know, this isn’t exactly a romantic setting.”

He was pleasantly sore from the work out and sleepy from a full stomach by the time they got back to their room, and absolutely ready to drop into bed, but instead of doing that when they were ready they both stood around, hovering uncertainly between the two beds. Neither of them seemed willing to be the first one to mention the elephant in the room, and there was no bad weather to use as an excuse – the sky was perfectly clear and the temperature warm. They’d become used to sharing the bed before summer, but they’d had enough time apart that they’d have to either sleep separately or admit that it was by preference.

When Takao seemed like he was going to give up first and climb into his own bed, Shun spoke up in a rush before it was too late, “We should push the beds together.” He managed to cope with a few seconds of Takao staring speechlessly before adding, “It would… make more space in the room?”

As excuses went, it really wasn’t a good one at all, but Takao nodded readily. It took no time at all to move what little furniture they had in the room and shove the two small beds together at one side against the wall, and when they’d finished they climbed quickly into it, and only then did Shun realise how different this felt to when they’d shared a bed before.

He wasn’t just sleeping in his own bed with Takao now; they were sleeping in a bed that was _theirs._ He might have taken the time to adequately freak out about this if he wasn’t so sleepy and warm and feeling comforted by having Takao right by him again after the weeks apart.

Instead of turning his back on Takao, like he normally would do, they lay facing each other, shuffling closer until Shun couldn’t have moved without touching him. He had no doubt that he’d wake up with Takao wrapped around him like usual, but he just couldn’t turn away yet.

“Practice together feels better,” Takao whispered, his apprehensive fingers lightly tapping against Shun’s hand. “And this.”

Shun knew what he meant – sharing the bed – and he wanted to make a joke, to make light of it before it got too serious, but the joke dried up in his throat and he opened his hand to grip Takao’s. He moved closer. Close enough that their knees knocked together and he felt Takao’s nose brush against his.

Forcing himself not to give in to nervousness and jerk back, Shun closed his eyes and whispered back, “I missed you.”

Takao swallowed and gave Shun’s hand a small squeeze, his breath coming faster. Shun felt the anticipation crushing down on him and his heart racing in his chest. He waited, only barely moving his mouth closer to Takao’s so that their noses touched again, but not daring to close the final gap himself. But Takao didn’t move any closer, and they both eventually fell asleep with their hands clasped together.


	22. “No – no. Just keep your clothes on.”

The last week of their break was quiet and mostly uneventful, giving them plenty of time to add in some extra practice when they weren’t cramming the whole summers worth of homework that neither of them had finished into those last few days.

Work at the café wasn’t any more or less busy than usual – at least until the rooms filled back up with returning students and classes started again, meaning the morning shifts were filled with grouchy voices and bleary eyes as people struggled to re-establish the early morning routines they had abandoned almost two months ago by consuming extraordinary amounts of caffeine before class. The afternoons were just as busy, but occasionally included people falling asleep at tables.

Takao was at a table there wrestling with his homework during Shun’s shifts more often than not when he wasn’t in class, though they didn’t get more than the odd moment to speak. When he didn’t turn up at all one day, Shun assumed that he’d probably seen how unusually busy the café was that night and had left to go back to the gym instead. He hadn’t said anything about going out anywhere with anyone, so he just focused on getting through the night, ignoring the knot growing in his shoulders, and getting back to collapse into bed.

 _Their_ bed. Where they would lie close, never not touching, and Shun would have to somehow find a way to fall asleep every night with the intense yearning to just do _something_ more burning through him. Takao would wrap his arms around him in the dark, sometimes running his hands up Shun’s sides making him shiver, or delicately tracing loose patterns over his arms and shoulders, only for them to wake up tangled even closer together in the morning and–

“Izuki-kun! Wake up!” The angry voice accompanied a sharp nail that jabbed him in the side, startling him out of his daydream and making him almost drop the milkshake that was oozing out over the lid of the styrofoam cup in his hand and running down his fingers to drip onto the counter where he’d been slowly squeezing tighter.

“Sorry!” He rasped, hurrying to clean up and make another.

By the time he got back he expected to find Takao either passed out over his homeword or sitting around waiting for him and watching tv on Shun’s laptop, but when he got there he found him still dressed and looking ready to leave.

“You’re late!”

“For what? Where are you going?”

“What took so long?”

“It was busy,” Shun frowned at Takao’s bulkier than usual bag as he slung it over his shoulder. “What…”

“Come on, we have to go,” Takao grabbed his hand, pulling him towards the door.

“Wait,” Shun pulled him back, but didn’t let go. “Go where?”

“It’s a surprise!”

Shun sighed. The knot in his shoulders feeling tighter. “It’s really late and I’m tired. Can’t we just go tomorrow?”

“It has to be now,” he insisted, checking the time on his watch. “It has to be tonight.”

“…It’s not a party is it?”

“No! Just – come _on_ ,” he tugged on Shun’s hand again, urging him to the door. Shun glanced wistfully at the bed, but turned back to see Takao hit him with an exaggerated pout. “I promise it’ll be worth it.”

Shun dropped his shoulders in defeat and Takao’s hand so that he could change, and began pulling off his uniform, but Takao forced him back into it.

“No – no. Just keep your clothes on. We don’t have time.”

Shun grumbled, struggling with his head caught in his stupid shirt until Takao won and yanked it back down over him and he could only stare exasperated at him, “Takao, I’m dressed like a fruit salad.”

“That’s… fine,” Takao said, shaking his head. He didn’t even try to sound like he wasn’t lying. “It looks fine.”

“This morning you said I looked like a wiggles prop reject.”

He snorted, taking another good look at the uniform. “I mean, you kinda do though.” Seeing Shun’s expression he quickly added, “But no one is going to see you anyway, so it doesn’t –”

“I’m not going out like this,” he said firmly. “I’ve been wearing it all day. And it’s uncomfortable.”

Takao’s eyes rolled back, and then his head, and he growled in frustration. “Okay, get changed, but be quick.”

Shun quickly escaped from the uniform, thankful to finally be out of it, and started pulling items out of the closet at random. Half way through pulling them on he glanced at Takao, only to see him turning his head away fast and looking with extremely interested focus at a coffee stain on the desk beside him.

“Okay,” he said, pulling on a sweater that he wasn’t even sure had originally been his.

Takao took his hand again, dragging him from the room. Shun followed behind him, ignoring the only somewhat interested stares of the few students they passed in the hallways. Instead of leading him down though, when they reached the staircase Takao started heading upwards, not once letting go of Shun like he might try to get out of it.

Shun only asked once more where they were going, but gave it up when he didn’t get an answer. Takao carried on up every flight until they reached the fire escape to the roof. Shun didn’t bother pointing out that they weren’t allowed up there – they weren’t allowed in the gym outside of practice times either but that never stopped them.

Takao left Shun standing in the doorway while he checked around, coming back to declare the area clear and pull him along again to a spot against the wall where he dropped the bag and then himself, slapping the ground beside him to indicate Shun should sit.

Shun sighed, slowly lowering himself on to the cold ground and trying to get comfortable while Takao looked through his bag for something. He looked up at the stars and the barely there sliver of moon in the cloudless sky when he said, “You do know why people usually bring each other up here, right?”

Takao stiffened next to him. “I didn’t bring you here to make out!”

“Shame,” Shun said, biting back a laugh when Takao began raking through his bag with renewed force, purposely making as much noise as he could.

He withdrew a flask, a can of soda, a bag of chips, and a blanket, and on seeing Shun curious look told him, “It’s not a picnic, okay? I just wanted snacks.”

“You have a blanket.”

“Yeah,” he said, throwing it around his shoulders and holding one side open. “It’s cold. You want in or not?”

Lips twitching into smile, he shuffled closer and let Takao wrap the blanket – and his arm – around him too, and accepted the flask that turned out to be filled with coffee. It had a little too much sugar and it was only barely still warm, but he sipped at it anyway while Takao chewed his lips, alternating between staring at the sky and at his watch.

“So why _are_ we up here?” He asked.

Takao looked up from his watch, smirking at him, but didn’t seem able to meet his eyes properly and turned away again when he said, “You’re the one who said you wanted a more romantic setting.”

Shun felt like he was hearing it from far away, weirdly detached until it sank in, but Takao was glaring at the sky again and for the first time in a long time Shun just couldn’t read him at all. It was a joke – it was _obviously_ a joke. Even the way he’d smirked had said it was just a part of that dumb game. But there was no smugness or gloating, no waiting for Shun to blush and fluster.

Takao took his eyes from the sky to look at him, his brow knitted together. “Are you okay? You’re shaking. It’s not _that_ cold.”

Shun blinked at him owlishly for a few seconds before saying, “It’s just my shoulders. Aching. Long day at work.”

Well it wasn’t a _lie_.

“Oh, you should have said something,” Takao moved his arm, but the weight lifting away didn’t make him feel any better. He assumed that that was it and Takao would go back to whatever he was waiting for, until he stood up and nudged at Shun with his foot. “Move forward.”

“Wha… why?” He moved forward anyway, letting Takao squeeze in between him and the wall, settling down again with a leg stretched out on either side of him. Shun really wasn’t seeing how this was supposed to make his shoulders feel less tense.

“I had a few crash courses in sports massage,” he said, and _now_ Shun could hear that smugness. “Figured it might be useful. You know, what with the sports and… yeah.” The overconfidence in his voice filtered out quickly as his hands came to rest on Shun’s shoulders. “So, uh, just. Relax? Just relax.”

He said it softly enough that Shun had to briefly wonder if he was talking to himself, and then he felt Takao’s thumbs pressing into his muscles right where the ache was worst, making him hiss.

“Sorry!” Takao pulled his hands back quickly.

“No,” Shun said, rolling his shoulders a little, “it’s fine. It must just be more strained than I thought.” Takao didn’t move. “You can go on.”

“I’m not exactly qualified,” Takao admitted, as though he thought Shun wouldn’t have expected that. His hands rested on his shoulders again, fingers twitching uncertainly. “You sure?”

“You don’t have to,” Shun said, pulling his knees up closer to his body.

“I’ll just…” Takao squeezed again, gently. “Less pressure then.”

And after that, it was actually nice. They both sat quietly while Takao kneaded at his shoulders and Shun’s hands were clenched into fists on his knees until they slowly eased their grip. It was making Shun feel less and less able to keep his eyes open, until a small desperate sound slipped out past his lips and Takao’s hands froze, and so did he. Slowly, his hands slid down Shun’s back to rest on his waist.

Neither of them moved or said anything for a moment while Shun forced down his embarrassment, but it was Takao who spoke up first, “You’re shaking again.”

“I’m kind of cold now,” he said. The nights were still pretty warm, but he felt the absence of the blanket and Takao’s hands around his shoulders.

He was half expecting it when instead of moving, Takao just wrapped the blanket around himself and then wrapped his arms around Shun, cocooning them both in it together and resting his chin on Shun’s shoulder.

“Is this okay?” He asked, his voice careful.

Shun felt like he knew what he meant, but he nodded and replied, “Much warmer.”

He was about ask if Takao was comfortable enough there, but a tiny flash of light in the corner of his vision caught his eye and he looked around for whatever it was. Just when he almost decided he’d probably imagined it, he saw another; a tiny streak of white light that darted through the sky for barely a second, disappearing into the darkness again. And then another.

“Takao!” He breathed, gaping up at it.

“Tonight was supposed to be the best night to see it,” Takao said. “The rest of the week is going to be cloudy I guess, but it doesn’t look like there’s that many.”

They watched quietly for a while, counting up each little burst of light that sporadically shot by above them. Tired of craning his neck to look up, especially with his shoulders still sore, Shun slid himself down to lie back against Takao, resting his head on Takao’s shoulder so that Takao was forced to lie back against the wall.

“You comfortable there?” He asked, twisting a little to see Takao’s face. Or what he _could_ see of it from that angle.

“Very,” Takao said in a tight voice.

Shun felt a quiet laugh bubbling in his chest. “I can move if you’re uncomfortable.”

“Nope,” he said in the same stiff voice, holding on a little tighter with his arms. He waited a moment before asking, “So, uh. Was this a lame idea or what?”

Takao let out an amused huff, but Shun wasn’t going to make fun of him for this one.

“No,” he said, holding onto Takao’s arm under the blanket with one hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “It’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah?” He asked, letting out a little breath when Shun nodded. “Cool.”

Shun relaxed back again to watch the sky, resting the other hand on Takao’s leg as they silently watched the meteors zipping past.


	23. “Don’t worry, it only seems kinky the first time.”

The nights seemed to get darker too quickly, leaving Shun wondering where most of the year had already gone. The end of summer slipped by and the heat gave way to cooler days. Their coach had them training harder and for longer, though no one complained when they were equally as anxious about the upcoming tournament, keen to make as many improvements as possible before then, leaving little time or energy left for Shun and Takao to do any extra training outside of practice.

Shun woke up to semidarkness in their room, disoriented and uncertain about the time or day until he remembered that his afternoon class had been cancelled and they’d both fallen asleep in their bed. Takao was still sleeping, curled around him with his face buried in Shun’s hair and one arm still under Shun’s neck. The other hand had worked its way under Shun’s shirt, holding Shun firmly to him even in his sleep.

Usually Shun would set an alarm to wake them, but since it was already so late he guessed he must have forgotten to do it. He took the time to stretch out first, somehow feeling like he’d slept for too long and not long enough at the same time. Takao didn’t wake behind him, but he did try to wrap himself even tighter around him.

“Wake up,” he muttered, shrugging his elbow back to shake Takao awake, entirely unsurprised when it didn’t work and he got no response at all. He turned, shuffling bit by bit until he was facing Takao again and could free his arms. Takao’s grip didn’t relent and his only reaction was to make an unhappy whine and try to dig his head into Shun’s ribs, his hands finding their way back under Shun’s shirt where they flattened to his back, but still he didn’t wake up.

Shun was able to push himself up and lean over him to reach his phone and ignoring the muffled noise of protest. He sighed, wincing at the angry message on his screen, and shook Takao again.

“It’s too early,” Takao muttered.

“It’s not, it’s late,” Shun told him, debating if there was actually any point rushing to get up now. “We missed practice.”

“They won’t notice.”

“They noticed.” Takao peeked up at Shun at that.

Shun pointed the phone screen at him and after squinting through the bright light he read the message and rolled over onto his back, removing one hand from inside Shun’s shirt to search around on the floor. His other hand stroked casually up Shun’s back, moving slowly back down again when he found his phone and relaxed back into the mattress. He pulled a face at it and Shun assumed he had a similar if not identical rant there waiting for him. They both put down their phones, electing to ignore that problem until the next morning when they would both be yelled at no matter what they tried to say now.

“I guess we could just go back to sleep,” Shun offered. He wouldn’t fall back to sleep now, but he would happily lie in bed for longer.

Takao looked up at him, considering something. His hand rubbing gently up his back again, and then back down again. And again. Shun swallowed, waiting. Eventually he said, “We should go to practice.” Shun was already agreeing before he went on, “I wanted to try something new while we’re alone without everyone else there anyway.”

Shun frowned at him as he finally released him and rolled out of bed. “What kind of ‘something new’?”

All he got for that was a cryptic wink and a smirk, but he knew better than to bother asking again. He’d find out faster if he just got up and went along with it.

*

Takao dropped his bag on the gym floor, right in the middle instead of in the changing room or at least against the wall out of their way, and he left it there to get the balls from the storeroom. Shun stood near it, assuming he was supposed to wait there too, but Takao ignored it when he came back and started warming up. Shun followed suit, assuming Takao would explain at some point, but when they were ready to start he still said nothing – just picked it back up again, shoving it into Shun’s arms so that he could open it up with both hands.

He pulled out a length of fabric that Shun might have thought was a bandage if it wasn’t so darkly coloured.

“What is that?” He asked, watching Takao take out another.

“They’re blindfolds,” Takao said.

He reached back into the bag and started pulling out a length of rope, and Shun felt his eyebrows shoot up, not bothering to mask his surprise.

“You realise my birthday isn’t for another month, right?” He said.

Takao’s cheeks darkened a little, but he shot Shun an amused look before taking the bag from him and throwing it away towards the wall.

“Don’t worry,” he said, wrapping one end of the rope around his own wrist and flashing Shun a grin, “it only seems kinky the first time.”

Shun waited, but it didn’t seem like Takao was going to tell him any more without prompting. “Are you going to explain this or…”

“It’s like, uh,” he said distractedly. His eyes narrowed in frustration at the rope that was slipping around his arm while he tried to fasten it with only one hand. “It’s like a test.”

“Like a test?”

“Yeah, it’s… listen, could you –” he held his arm out, the rope still wrapped loosely around it.

Shun was no less confused, but complied, fastening the rope around Takao’s wrist as best he could without cutting circulation. As soon as he was done he let go, but Takao grabbed his hand and held him there, waiting until Shun shrugged in answer to his silent request, giving his permission.

Takao tied the other end of the rope around it, binding them together so that they could go no further than a few metres apart. He held on to Shun for longer than necessary once it was secured, his thumbs rubbing softly over the small space left between the rope and the palm of his hand.

“Is that too tight?” He asked quietly.

Shun shook his head, but Takao didn’t let go until Shun coughed and asked, “So, now that we’ve tied the knot, what’s next?”

Takao laughed, stepping back to pick up the ball. “Now we have to play and not get tangled up.”

“What exactly is the point of this?” He got into position anyway, but he didn’t see how this was meant to help.

“Because it’s something extra to be aware of. We can see how well we can play and still see everything while having to pay attention to this as well.”

Oddly enough, Shun could see the logic in that. It was still a strange plan, but he supposed the talent they were training was a little strange too. He was sure it would be a more effective exercise with more people to have to pay attention to, but he wasn’t going to bother suggesting it. Just the idea of trying to explain this to the rest of the team had him feeling awkward.

“Well,” he said, jumping forward to steal the ball out of Takao’s hands, “I think you just wanted to tie me up.”

“If all I wanted was to tie you up,” Takao said, smirking as he stepped forward slowly to take the ball back from his hands, “I wouldn’t be doing it in the gym.”

Shun wasn’t really sure who was even winning points anymore, but he let Takao take the ball before he thought to stop him, so he supposed it wasn’t him.

Their first attempt went even worse than either of them had expected, ending only minutes after they began with an abrupt yelp as Takao’s legs got caught and he fell, declaring that that was entirely Shun’s fault for circling around him.

“That’s knot good,” Shun said, pleased when Takao stopped trying to free himself just for a moment to laugh.

The second attempt lasted about as long as the first and finished with them both falling to the floor tangled in the rope, to which Takao grudgingly accepted responsibility. The third went better, but still ended with Shun’s arm getting tied to his own chest and the rope looped around him. Surprisingly, the distance limit didn’t come up as a problem as often as them getting caught up together did, but the experience was enlightening enough to teach them something at least.

“I think we’re getting the hang of it,” Takao said, smiling at the end of a successful play which ended with neither of them on the floor. “Ready to try step two?”

Shun asked his question with a look while he took a long drink of water. Takao pointed up at the lights.

So they played in the dark, finding that now their biggest problems were losing the ball and bumping into each other. Their eyes adjusted to the dark quickly and losing the ball became less of a problem, but they still managed to crash into each other several times more until they were able to discern their positions in relation to each other.

They almost collided again. Shun dodged in time to avoid it, but tripped Takao up with his foot and reacted instinctively, trying to catch him, somehow succeeding in stopping him from dropping to the floor until the weight unbalanced him and Takao landed on his back with a heavy thud, grunting uncomfortably when Shun landed on top of him.

“Nice catch,” Takao groaned, not trying to get up yet.

Shun didn’t try to get up either, taking the opportunity to get a well-earned break where he lay with his head on Takao’s chest, listening to his heart drumming. They’d both be bruised from this practice by the next day, and Shun was already beginning to feel it. Tying themselves together was a hazardous strategy, but he had to admit it had so far been a benefit to their ability. He wasn’t sure how much they could really learn from this though, and he wasn’t sure they would survive if this part of the ‘test’ had a step three.

“Are you going to get up?” Takao asked slowly. “Or are you planning on spending the rest of this practice on top of me?”

Shun let out a huff of quiet amusement and lifted his head to look at Takao. “What’s the matter? Aren’t you used to getting close to me while we’re alone in the dark?”

Takao’s reaction to that was… different. He didn’t laugh or fluster, he just took in a sharp breath, and he went rigid under him, and Shun didn’t feel like he’d won any points for that. It just felt like he’d broken some kind of unspoken rule by finally saying something about it out loud. All other taunts or teases were fine, but it seemed the ‘we share a bed (and cuddle in it)’ topic was a prohibited one. When he pushed himself up to release him, Takao took a little while longer before sitting himself up.

For a few long seconds Shun thought he was going to be angry or awkward about it, but he just crawled closer and took Shun’s hand gently. He wasn’t mad. If Shun wasn’t very nearly certain that it was wishful thinking, he almost could have thought Takao seemed relieved about it.

“We should take this off now,” he said, untying the knots and freeing their wrists, pausing when Shun flinched in surprise at the sting when it came away. Maybe it had been a little tight after all.

Takao leaned down closer to Shun’s wrist, like he was trying to get a better look at it, and Shun wondered if his vision was really good enough that he could see what would surely only be a faint pinkness on his skin. He was about to ask when he was suddenly unable to say anything at all, because Takao was pressing his lips to the sensitive spot in a feather-light kiss that left Shun shaking.

As soon as it happened it was already over, and Takao stood up, winding the rope together in his hands as he walked towards his bag to put it away. Shun got unsteadily to his feet and watched Takao pick up the blindfolds, holding them up with a chuckle.

“Probably should have brought some knee pads or something, because this one is going to be even more fun.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The key to marathon-writing something with this many chapters is learning how to- *slips 10,000 leagues into a fugue state and screams for a solid sixteen hours*


	24. “I’m not gonna stop leaving marks till I’m sure everyone knows you’re mine.”

Halloween had been an eventful time; parties, pranks, and general Halloween chaos had taken a lot of their free time, not to mention Shun having to find his own uniform for work because they’d informed him that Halloween meant going in your Halloween costume, which Shun had neither planned nor prepared.

After classes and practice were over Shun lay on his stomach, stretched out across their bed with his books open in front of him, determined to get some studying done no matter how much Takao was _clearly_ purposefully trying to hijack and divert his attention because he was bored. Takao lay pretty much right on top of him with one leg lying over the back of Shun’s, his knee bent so that Shun’s legs were trapped under it. Not that he planned on trying to escape. The weight of Takao’s body against his was kind of comforting, but they just couldn’t really have gotten any closer if they’d tried.

Shun would have complained about the distraction, if only because he really needed to study while he had time, except that Takao had decided he’d finished studying for the day and had ended up doodling on the back of Shun’s neck with a marker. At least it was keeping him occupied enough that he wasn’t attempting anything more disruptive for now.

“What are you drawing?” He asked. The first game of the winter tournament was waiting for them in less than twelve hours, and while the endurance and stamina of his eagle eye had grown exponentially since joining the team, he still wanted to save as much of its strength to be fresh for the game as he could.

“It’s a surprise,” Takao said. His voice sounded mischievous, but Shun could tell he was anxious about their game too; his nerves manifesting as restlessness and impulsivity.

“If you’re going to mark me up like this you could at least tell me what it is.”

“Nope.”

“Then stop.”

Shun reached back to swat his hand away, though only half-heartedly. Takao caught it with his free hand and simply held it, linking their fingers together and continuing making lines like there’d been no interruptions.

He sighed, attempting to focus again.

“I’m not gonna stop leaving marks,” Takao said, saying every word carefully like he didn’t want to lose focus, “’till I’m sure everyone knows you’re mine.”

Or because he was stalling.

“Wait, what are you–” Shun tried to turn to look at him, but Takao held him still and picked up his phone. There was a click a moment later, and he held the phone in front of Shun’s face.

“There,” he said, sounding horribly pleased with himself, “doesn’t that look nice.”

_Not a stray - if lost return to Takao Kazunari (owner) :P_

He did realise that the entire purpose was to goad him into reacting – he would have recognised that even without the telling giggles from Takao as Shun fought him off of him and wrestled with him for control of the pen – but he did it anyway. Takao wasn’t even taking him seriously, even letting Shun get the upper hand and roll them over so he was pinned under him, evidently not truly believing that Shun could win this fight if he didn’t let him. It made him mad enough to give him that little extra force, gripping Takao’s wrist and prying the pen from him.

Takao was still laughing, right up until he saw the lid removed from the pen and realised Shun’s intentions. “No – wait!”

Ignoring his cries of protest, Shun held Takao’s arms down to his chest, scribbling messy words right down one side of his face quickly before he broke free. Another tussle for the marker ensued, ending with both of their hands covered in black ink and the pen slipping from their grip and falling over the side of the bed to the floor.

Takao groaned loudly, giving up and letting his head and hands flop back down on the bed. “That was a permanent marker.”

Shun eyed the words scrawled all over Takao’s cheeks and pushed himself up slowly, sitting on Takao’s thighs and pressing his lips together.

“What does it say?” Takao asked, sounding thoroughly defeated.

“You didn’t tell me it was permanent,” Shun said in his defence, stifling a laugh as he picked up Takao’s phone from where he’d left it near them on the bed. “And you weren’t concerned about that when it was me you were writing on, so… we’re even?”

Takao tried to level him with a scathing glare as Shun took the picture, though he couldn’t help but smile through it. “Yours is smaller. And not on your face!”

Shun turned the phone slowly, holding up the picture for him to see. Takao squinted at it, deciphering the scratchy lettering until he groaned again, louder, and covered his face in his hands.

His chest and shoulders started shaking in silent laughter, and Shun could see that his face was red behind his hands.

“We can probably cover it up,” he said hopefully.

Takao peeked out through his fingers at him, confused only for a second before he remembered the game tomorrow and sighed a muffled curse into his palms. He dropped his hands from his face, resting them on Shun’s hips, still smiling despite their predicament.

“Okay,” he sighed. “So how do we cover it up?”

*

When they’d knocked on the door of Takao’s cheerleader friend they’d been tentatively optimistic, but after taking one wide-eyed look at the bold black lines on Takao’s face and laughing herself hoarse she’d dropped the news that she probably wouldn’t be able to hide it. At least not very well.

“Can’t you do _anything_?” Takao begged her. “We have a game tomorrow.”

“I know you do,” she rolled her eyes, but thankfully didn’t bother giving them a lecture on their imprudence.

After a little more begging and pleading she agreed to at least try to make it less obvious, but after thirty minutes it wasn’t going well and Takao was struggling to sit still, fidgety with impatience. He sat on the end of her bed, bouncing his legs and grumbling. Shun sat next to him with a hand on Takao’s back while they waited for it to be over.

“Hold still,” she chided him for the seventh time, gripping his face to turn it back to where she needed him to be.

“It’s not working,” Takao complained. He turned his head to give Shun a look, but he never finished the movement before she stopped him.

“Because you keep moving!” She said, tugging his face again. “This is your fault you know.”

“I told you it wasn’t me who–”

“Your. Fault.” She shut him up by patting on what Shun thought must have been the hundredth product to his face, none too gently, making him splutter when it went into his mouth. Wipes lay all around them covered in the failures and she added another when she wiped the makeup from her fingers, sighing in surrender. “I think this is the best you’re going to get.”

Takao looked into the mirror in his hands, twisting his face gloomily. “You can still see it.”

“I’m not exactly a makeup artist,” she said, scooping things from the bed where they sat to dump it into a bag, “and this is all I can do, so do you want me to help you cover it up again in the morning or not?”

*

They were itching to get out there enough by the time they hurried from the dorms to the court that the pen marks had slipped their mind – at least until they entered the changing room and the captain paused mid-speech to glare at them, giving Takao’s cheek a double take, but only said, “You were almost late.”

The disappointed tone had them both mumbling apologies before changing quickly.

As they left the changing room behind everyone else, he stopped them on the way out, gripping Takao’s face and turning it so that he could squint at the messy, and poorly concealed, markings to decipher them, muttering as he read out, “Goods and ass(ets) property of…” He stopped, and his eyes moved to Shun in a flat stare. “Are you kidding me? This better be a prank or dare or something and not some kind of weird thing you two are into cause –”

“More like revenge,” Takao admitted, his face still squished between the captain’s fingers. Shun turned around to show him the far less visible writing on himself, to which the captain had to take in a deep breath and rub a hand down his face.

“Okay, whatever, I don’t even want to… Listen, if you two ever do something this before a game again…” He didn’t seem able to finish and just took another long breath before releasing Takao’s face and pointing at them both. “You better get out there and give them hell today!”

Suddenly energised and more raring to go than ever, they exchanged glances. Shun felt the swoop in his stomach at Takao’s beaming smile along with his excitement to get started and play, and he smiled back before they followed out the door.


	25. “Kiss the hell out of me. Please.”

The other team was bigger – far bigger, in every sense – and while they’d been optimistic that it would slow them down a little, it wasn’t enough that speed was giving them as much of an advantage as they’d hoped it would. They got ahead in the first quarter with a good start after taking the first points, but then fell behind again in the second.

It was a difficult match up for their first game. They were going to lose if they kept playing like this, but every time they thought they had a way through it was shut down firmly and at once.

By the third quarter Shun thought they had a grasp on their play style, helping them to maintain a four point gap, but they were still being driven relentlessly and couldn’t close it. He knew he noticed more than the others – even Takao, whose bird eye vision was much stronger than his, was more focused on watching individual players than discerning their strategy.

Months of training meant that Shun was able to easily understand and communicate with Takao even under stress, but the rest of the team didn’t speak their language and were blind to what they said to each other from across the court. Right now Takao was concerned, though his grin told the guy standing face to face with him the opposite, but he didn’t even need to look Shun’s way to see him asking for the ball.

So attuned to him now Shun almost thought that he felt rather than saw the subtle movements he made when he moved to pass one way, tricking the taller guy in front of him before firing the ball behind him to Shun, who was already moving to shoot by the time the ball landed in his hands.

It landed through the hoop before anyone had even finished working out where Takao had passed the ball to and most of them were still wondering what just happened when the buzzer sounded half a second later signalling the end of the third quarter.

They moved off towards the coach and Shun looked at Takao as he came up beside him, eyeing the marks down the side of his face. They should have figured covering it up would only work for so long when they were sweating and rubbing their faces. One cheek was streaky with whatever it was Takao’s friend had used, making his skin look weird and drawing attention to the black marks underneath. He meant to say something about it, but Takao turned his head to look at him, his smile far too soft for how amped up he’d been just a second ago. He realised their captain was talking and forced himself to turn away.

“ – So unless you have any suggestions–”

“I do,” Shun said, surprising himself when he spoke up. The captain had been talking to their coach, not the team at large, but he stopped anyway, closing his mouth with only a small hint of irritation and nodding for Shun to go on. He quickly explained his strategy and looked anywhere but at anyone’s eyes when he was done, sure they’d think him cheeky for putting himself at the centre of the plan. When he did look up he caught Takao’s unconcealed smirk and had to look down again and press his lips tight not to copy it.

He was almost surprised when they agreed to go along with it, but grinned at Takao when the huddle broke apart again. Takao spared a moment to return it before taking a long drink of water, lifting the front of his shirt to wipe his face after he lowered the bottle.

“Wait,” Shun grabbed his arm to stop him.

“Wha–?”

He grabbed a towel from the bench and moved closer, holding the other side of Takao’s face with one hand while he tried to rub the makeup away. Takao opened his mouth but Shun cut him off, pressing a thumb over his lips before he could ask.

“It’s making it more obvious,” he explained quietly, moving the towel slowly so not to be too rough and make it hurt after all the scrubbing they’d done on it while trying to wash it off already. “Don’t worry, it’s too messy and small for anyone to read it from the seats.”

Takao swallowed back whatever he was going to say and eyed him carefully but kept his mouth shut under Shun’s thumb. When he’d done the best he could in the time he had he stopped to give it one more look over to make sure he hadn’t left any glaring smudges. All he noticed was Takao’s lips, still slightly parted and still under Shun’s thumb while Takao watched at him with wide eyes and Shun realised he was still cradling Takao’s face in one hand.

A glance at the crowd as he stepped back told him that it hadn’t gone unnoticed – several girls along the front row were giggling and hissing excitedly into each other’s ears, not at all hiding what their subject of gossip was. Shun hoped that they’d at least not be anyone from either of their classes, but he didn’t look again to find out or check around the room to see if they were the only ones. They had a game to win.

He might have worried that he’d been too obvious and freaked Takao out, but when he stood in his position ready to start again Takao had walked past him, his hand dragging briefly across Shun’s back in a way that was clearly meant to be a friendly encouragement, and a thanks too he guessed.

The last quarter felt somehow longer and shorter than the others at the same time. The new formation worked well and they pulled ahead in points quickly, but they had to work hard to keep it up and not lose them back to the other team again.

Shun heard the ball swish threw the net for the fourth time after it left his hands that quarter already, but didn’t get the chance to watch it happen because a heavy body slammed into the side of him, wrapping it’s arms around his neck. The happy yelling in his ear didn’t help much.

“Can’t breathe,” he said, though he laughed, tapping at Takao’s rather considerable bicep that was against his throat.

The arm moved from around his airways, but it was no easier to breathe when instead Takao grabbed him by the sides of his head in both hands and pressed their foreheads together, gasping out, “You’re amazing.”

Shun repressed his urge to recoil back from the obvious exaggeration, licking his lips while he tried to think quickly of something to say that wouldn’t embarrass himself. He was glad they were all already red and sweating from the activity.

“You impressed?” He asked, managing a grin that didn’t shake too much.

“Impressed?” Takao was yanked back away from him by the back of his shirt by a third-year. “He’s practically swooning.”

“I am,” Takao said, shrugging widely and allowing himself to be towed backwards. “Kiss the hell out of me. Please.”

“Hold it together for a few more minutes,” the other guy said, rolling his eyes and giving him a slight shove, “we’re not finished yet.”

Takao threw Shun a wink before hurrying back into position, and Shun pulled his concentration back to the game, ignoring that he could barely even hear the crowd over the buzzing in his ears.


	26. “I think I could fall madly in bed with you.”

The mood was so elevated after their win that Shun didn’t even have any objections to being dragged to the celebratory party afterwards. He’d be more tired and sore for it later – they all would – but for now they were all riding that victory high. At least no one there was surprised to see them all sitting around filling up the space on the couches, content not to get back on their feet for a while.

Even Takao’s energy wasn’t limitless. Shun watched him through the doorway into the next room where he was perched on a stool across the small table from the captain, both resting their right elbow on the table between them. Takao lasted maybe three seconds before his hand was slammed down and he dropped his head, defeated. Picking himself up again so that the next person in line could sit to challenge the winner at arm wrestling, he traipsed over to the couch where Shun sat between two of their teammates, who conveniently decided to relocate themselves as Takao approached.

Shun didn’t bother moving over to make more space, but Takao didn’t sit beside him anyway. Instead, he dropped down with a huff and lay across the whole thing, putting his legs over Shun’s lap. The seat wasn’t really long enough for him, but he didn’t move somewhere where he could stretch out properly, so Shun just folded his arms around Takao’s knees, hugging them to his chest so he could rest his head on them, ignoring the noise and commotion around them.

He was still half in a daze when he noticed someone was speaking. He didn’t hear what they said, but Takao glared up at them, and they laughed at his petulant expression.

“Not now,” Takao groaned, pointing a thumb back into the other room. “I just got my ass owned by Captain America over there.”

A few people snickered at that, one person frowning in confusion and muttering “America?” to more giggles.

“No,” Shun said without bothering to lift his head from Takao’s knee. He put one finger on Takao’s face and pressed, and Takao let him turn his head to point out the marks written on it. He tapped his finger on it again. “Everyone knows that’s mine.”

They laughed louder at that and Takao slapped his hand away, laughing along with them, but then grabbed his wrist before he could fold his arm away again. He didn’t even look at Shun as he laced their fingers together, laughing at something someone else said – Shun had no idea who it was or what they were saying; he had that loud buzzing noise in his ears again – and accepting a drink from someone else.

No one seemed to notice anything odd at all or pay any mind to them taking up the entire couch and holding hands. Takao talked as much as usual, but only moved from his place there with Shun once to get another drink. Someone took advantage of that and stole his vacated seat, only to be shooed away again when he came back so that he could lie back down, holding out a drink for Shun and not hesitating to take his hand again. Still no one seemed to think anything of it.

Shun mostly stayed quiet, happy to reply if he was spoken to, but otherwise too worn out to do much else but observe everyone else and exchange a shy smile with Takao whenever they were left alone again.

They stayed like that until a fourth-year member was stood in front of them, demanding they move up and stop hogging the couch. Thinking better of arguing with him, Takao complied with a pout, but instead of just moving his feet so the guy could sit on Shun’s other side, he nudged Shun over and sat himself in the middle between them, putting his arm around Shun’s shoulders.

If no one else found it weird, Shun wondered if maybe he was reading too much into it, if it was just him wanting to see something badly enough that he was seeing it, but… he didn’t want to believe that.

He was still only half way through his drink when someone came to tell him that it was his turn ‘at the table’, but he just blinked up at them, confused until he realised he was also expected to challenge the captain to an arm wrestle.

“Uh,” he took another look at the guy’s arms and shook his head, “no thanks.”

“It’s tradition,” they said, hauling him up and leaving no room for debate. “Everyone on the team does it after the first game of the tournament.”

He looked at Takao to help him avoid the task, but he was already getting up to follow and watch, so Shun sighed in resignation and asked, “What do I get if I win? Am I captain then?”

The other guy snorted and said, “You win the right to say you beat him, which no one has done yet so just get in there and lose with dignity.”

Shun let himself be pushed down onto the stool facing the captain just in time to see a girl leaning over to kiss him on the cheek, declaring it to be ‘for luck’. Shun eyed his arms again with a frown, muttering, “I don’t think he’s the one who needs it.”

She laughed at him, and then looked up over his shoulder at Takao, telling him, “Maybe you should even it out for him again.”

Chuckling a little, Shun flushed and kept his eyes down, expecting Takao to just laugh it off too. He did laugh, but he also grabbed Shun’s head in both hands, dropping one quick peck onto the top of his head before letting go and thumping him on the shoulder with a cheery, “Good luck!”

Beet red and his heart skipping, Shun lost immediately and quickly bowed out to let someone else take their turn so he could escape from the room to find another drink. Several girls from the cheerleading team stood around in the kitchen chatting among themselves about the coming tournaments, and Shun knew them well enough to greet them comfortably when he passed. He meant to get his drink and leave again, but found himself propping back against the counter and letting them drag him into the conversation. It wasn’t long before Takao appeared at his side again, his arm reclaiming its place around Shun’s shoulders, gently squeezing and tugging him closer. Shun gladly leaned into him, feeling warm.

*

Shun had managed to lose Takao somewhere in the house. Everyone around him was too drunk, too loud, too in the way. He asked a few of them if they’d seen him but gave up when he quickly realised none of them were likely to be very helpful. Pushing through them he checked each room before taking the stairs to the next floor, working his way around people who didn’t seem to know if they were going up or down.

A girl he recognised came out of the bathroom when he knocked. He didn’t know her name but she guessed what he was looking for and pointed him towards a door.

Shun thanked her, but paused with his hand on the doorknob, a twist of discomfort and fear making him want to turn around again. He wasn’t sure how he would cope with having to be the one to walk in there if Takao was with someone, but he shook it off and forced himself to go in, feeling both relieved and stupid to find Takao simply lying flat on his back alone with his eyes closed.

“Takao,” he said, hoping he wasn’t too drunk to get up.

When Takao didn’t wake Shun let the door close, blocking out a lot of the noise, and moved closer to shake him, calling his name again.

Takao made an unhappy whine, muttering, “So tired…”

“We need to go home,” Shun said, tugging on his arm. “You have to get up, you can’t sleep here. You want some water?”

Takao mumbled some more, but whatever he meant to say was lost in a jumble. Shun picked him up and forced him to his feet, leading him over to the tiny en-suite bathroom. Takao allowed himself to be taken into the room, too drowsy to pay attention to which door they were using, but jerked back and spluttered in shock when Shun ran the cold tap and splashed his face.

Shun only barely concealed his laugh, and for a moment Takao looked like he wanted to get mad about it, but he just sighed, wiped his face, and gave him a wry smile. “Thanks.”

The door to the bedroom opened fast, bouncing off the wall, making them both flinch. In the doorway the guy – who Shun had to assume the room belonged to – looked ready to yell, but stopped and only narrowed his eyes at them.

“Sorry,” Shun said quickly, “just getting some water.”

The initial anger on his face turned to suspicion. He eyed Takao where he leaned over the small sink, water dripping from his chin. “You better not be throwing up.”

Takao shook his head.

He took another moment to decide if they’d offended him before nodding and making up his mind that they weren’t misbehaving. “You lovebirds keep it clean.”

Before he could help himself Shun was throwing his thumbs up and saying, “It’s all PG in here.”

He wasn’t sure the other guy got the joke or if he was just entirely unamused by it, but Takao clearly liked it since he broke into giggles and had to sit down on the floor so that he wouldn’t fall. When they were left alone again he looked up at Shun and said, “PG.”

“Yeah,” giving him a small smile.

“Point guards,” Takao went on. Shun nodded, still smiling though he wasn’t sure why Takao felt the need to explain the pun to him, but he wasn’t finished yet. “Lovebirds.”

That one took Shun aback a little, having to take a second to think about the guy’s meaning behind that one, but then he nodded again, saying, “Because of the Eagle Eye and Hawk Eye thing.”

“Right,” Takao laughed again, “and because I –”

He pressed his mouth shut and just stared. Shun felt his smile disappear and stood up a little straighter, tense all over.

“And because you what?”

He waited, but Takao just turned his head and continued gazing off into nothing, silent for several long seconds until he whispered, “Because…”

Shun bit his tongue not to ask again, and Takao turned back to look at him with shocked wide eyes and gaped at him.

“Shun-chan,” he gasped quietly, “I… I think I’m drunk.”

Shun snorted, his body relaxing again when Takao broke into more giggles. He was looking into it too much again.

“Come on,” he sighed, helping Takao to his feet. He looked sleepy again, but managed to walk just fine on his own out of the room and down the stairs, saying goodbye to almost everyone he passed. Shun trailed after him, making sure he didn’t get distracted again so they could go straight home.

Takao brushed his teeth with his eyes closed and his head flopped to the side, leaning against Shun like he was already half way to falling asleep where he stood, and then left a trail of clothes through the room to the bed until he was in nothing but his boxers. Instead of getting into bed right away, he turned around and seized the bottom of Shun’s t-shirt, pulling it over his head.

Shun, taken too much by surprise to react any other way, just lifted his arms to let him before he realised what he was doing. He laughed nervously, grabbing Takao’s hands as they reached for his belt and keeping his eyes very firmly on Takao’s.

“What are you doing?”

“I want to sleep,” Takao whined. “You have to come with me.”

He would have pointed out that Takao didn’t look like he needed any help falling asleep – Shun wasn’t even sure if he was still entirely awake right now – but there wasn’t any sense in arguing when he hadn’t intended to stay up anyway.

“Of course I am,” he sighed, taking off his jeans quickly before Takao could start trying to undress him himself again.

As soon as he stepped out of them, Takao wrapped his arms around Shun’s middle and dropped down onto the bed, dragging Shun down with him and grabbing the blanket to wrap around them.

Shun shuffled for a minute, trying to get comfortable, but Takao seemed too far gone already to care how he was lying as long as Shun didn’t pry his arms from around him. He wriggled an arm under Takao’s neck and sighed, tucking his head under his chin, and was still trying to get his legs comfortable when Takao mumbled, “I think I could fall madly in…” there was a pause while Takao took in a breath – yawning, Shun realised after a moment, “madly into bed with you.”

He giggled at his own line, and pushed a knee between Shun’s. He only waited a second before deciding that wasn’t good enough and he pulled Shun’s leg up to wrap around his hips, holding it there with a hand on his thigh that felt like it was burning through his skin.

“You already did,” Shun said, stroking one hand slowly up and down Takao’s back and not even caring if he could feel it shake. “Go to sleep.”

“Yeah… Yeah I did…” Shun heard Takao’s voice fading to a whisper as he fell asleep still talking nonsense, feeling his lips moving still even after he’d gone too quiet to hear until it was just soft breathing against his skin.


End file.
